The Other Series of Unfortunate Events
by JustVilda Potter
Summary: This, just like the books, film and show, is a series of unfortunate events. Only this does not focus on the Baudelaires. This is the Quagmires' series of unfortunate events. The fire in the beginning, the self sustaining hot air mobile home in the end, and all those things in the middle. This mainly focuses on Isadora and Duncan. Based on the Netflix TV show.
1. The Quintessential Quagmires

**Hello A Series of Unfortunate Events writing fandom! T'is me, JustVilda Potter, here to bring you stories!**

**This right here is my first ASOUE story, in which I will be looking at another series of unfortunate events. To be more specific; The Quagmire's series of unfortunate events.**

**Quick note before I start, the names I used for the Quagmire parents; Quentin and Karen, come from CheryBlosom-chan's stories. Go check those out after you've read this.**

**Here we go!**

* * *

It seemed like any normal day in the dirty and busy city. It wasn't special in any way, and that statement was true. The day wasn't special, but it was surely _different_.

The thirteen year old Quagmire triplets all woke up in their room to the usual setting. '_Usual_' now being what had been _the usual_ for the last few weeks. Their butler pushed the big double door open with the breakfast trolley, on top of which were syrup covered waffles, and freshly squeezed orange juice.

Andrew would usually be accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Quagmire, but at the moment, they were away. The children hadn't gotten to know exactly what they were doing, only that it was top secret.

So for the time being, the triplets were alone with their butlers in the huge Quagmire mansion, which the Quagmire spouses were able to afford with their infamous Quagmire sapphires; a large amount of navy blue jewels.

Mr. Quagmire, Quentin, had supposedly found the sapphires on some _top secret mission_, but he did often make up unbelievable stories to entertain his children, so none of them really knew if this was the case.

Quentin's wife, Karen, had another story about the sapphires. She had told her triplets that the sapphires had been in the Quagmire family for centuries. The children didn't know who they believed, or if either of the stories were true. Their parents hid a lot about their pasts from them. The children trusted them anyway; after all, Quentin and Karen were their mother and father. They were also intelligent people, and as smart parents, they raised smart kids.

Isadora Quagmire was the oldest triplet, being born seven minutes before her first brother. She was a beautiful girl with long, brown hair and lovely blue eyes. At a very young age, Karen had introduced her to poetry, and it instantly became her main interest. Isadora was a promising poet, who could easily come up with a couplet at any given time. She wasn't only a smart poet though; she was also a very brave and empathetic girl, and an incredible sister.

The middle triplet was a boy, named Quigley Quagmire. For multiple generations in the Quagmire family, it had been a tradition to name the firstborn son a name starting with Q. The firstborn son of this generation happened to be Quigley, the young cartographer, who at a young age found his interest for making and reading maps. He surely did have a talent for it. As well as he had a talent for talking to people - he was xenial. But that wasn't it. Quigley also had wonderful looks. Very pleasant facial features, and gorgeus brown hair, which was always swept to the left in a messy style.

Quigley's identical triplet brother, Duncan, preferred to have his hair neat though. That was one of the only ways to tell the youngest two triplets apart. If you didn't know them of course. Then it was easy, seeing that their personalities were strikingly different. Quigley was a loud jokester, whereas Duncan was more idyllic. Duncan was the journalist in the family, and carried a notebook with him wherever he went, jolting down anything of meaning. He was just as smart as his two older siblings, but more sensitive. He could read and understand people in a way the other two couldn't.

Even though the triplets had a couple of contrary differences, they were best friends, and they were always there for each other. During the night, in the evening, and throughout the whole day. This morning was of course not an exception.

Each one of them sat up in their beds, smiling at Andrew, the butler. He grinned back.

"Good morning triplets."

The three children happily jumped out of their luxurious beds, and sprinted over to Andrew.

"Good morning, Andrew," the oldest triplet smiled as she grabbed one of the lunch trays.

Her brothers grabbed the other trays, and the children made their way over to the beds.

"Will mother and father come home today?" Duncan asked while cutting up his waffle.

"I'm afraid their position is still unclear, Mister Quagmire."

All three triplets quietly nodded to themselves, and looked down to hide their slightly disappointed smiles. They wanted Quentin and Karen to come home right now, and they had wanted that for weeks. But they were patient children, and understood what their parents were doing was important.

"Do we have anything planned for today?" Quigley looked up from his breakfast.

Andrew's lip curved up into a smile.

"Unfortunately not, Mister Quagmire. We'll just enjoy staying home."

"Even with all the places you can see, home is the safest place to be" Isadora recited.

Quigley and Duncan both looked over to her bed, and the triplets smiled at each other.

"I have a feeling today's going to be special."

Quigley's statement wasn't completely wrong. The day would have a special event. Sadly, it would also host an unfortunate event...

* * *

"Even more misinformation. This is just filled with lies!" Duncan threw the day's edition of The Daily Punctilio on the floor.

He had just read a title of an article, called "_A Drowning Incident During a Hurricane at Lake Lachrymose._"

"Yesterday, Andrew told us there had been a death there, but that was a murder," Isadora took the newspaper from the floor.

"I'm not reading any of that," Duncan turned his head away from the lie-filled paper.

He took out his very own, commonplace book, which actually contained true information.

"Me neither. I'd rather read this," Isadora picked up a book of Ogden Nash's poetry.

She began reading it, as Duncan scribbled something down. Quigley was on the other side of the room, drawing a map of the Quagmire mansion. He had been working on it for months, leaving no detail out. It was going to be _extraordinary_.

There was a quite long silence in the room, while Isadora read, Quigley drew, and Duncan wrote. Then there was a sudden clicking noise coming from the very fancy door in the room next to them.

"Children?"

The triplets knew that voice anywhere.

"Children? Duncan, Quigley, Isadora?"

"Mother?" Isadora closed her book, and put it on the coffee table.

Her, Duncan and Quigley looked up , and through the big arch to the entrance to the mansion.

"Father!"

Isadora and Duncan jumped off the couch, and ran to their parents standing in the doorway.

"Get over here, you three," their smiling father said, as the triplets made their way to them.

Isadora and Duncan immediately ran into their mother's arms, hugging her lovingly.

"How was your work?" Isadora asked.

"Oh, we're just happy to be home," Karen happily embraced the hug from her oldest and youngest kid. "You must have missed us inordinately"

"We have," Isadora grinned.

While they were hugging, Quigley had walked over to Quentin. He noticed his father's slight limp.

"How did you hurt your leg?"

"Breaking out of prison in Peru."

Quigley grinned, unsure whether this statement was true or not. It didn't matter at the moment, and he threw his arms around his father in a hug.

The triplets felt as if they had never been so happy.

* * *

A few hours went by faster than most minutes in the previous weeks. The Quagmires had spent the later half of the day doing things together. Catching up, playing games, and even watching a movie.

From all the excitement and happiness, they all got pretty tired quickly. Together, they went to the living room, to just relax together. Quigley put himself in an armchair, and started examining the luminous globe beside him. Duncan and Isadora sat down in the couch, Isadora with a book of Poems written by Finnish Women, and Duncan with his always dear notebook.

Quentin and Karen however, had their backs turned to the children, and were looking at an edition of The Daily Punctilio. The headline of the page read; "_OFFICIAL FIRE DEPARTMENT CONCLUDES: BAUDELAIRE FIRE AN ACCIDENT."_

"Things look bad," Karen said.

"Sometimes when things look bad, they turn out to be worse," Quentin stated.

Isadora and Duncan looked up from their positions on the couch. What were they talking about?

Quentin looked up, and out the massive window.

"There are fires all around us. Literally _and _figuratively."

"Then it's time we mount a vigorous fire defense."

Isadora and Duncan gave each other a worried look at their mother's words. Isadora leaned in a little to whisper: "Why do they keep talking about fire?"

"I know, right?" Duncan shrugged.

Quentin and Karen turned around, smiling at two of their triplets.

"We can hear you back there" Quentin said, smiling. "If you'd gone to my school you would have flunked eavesdropping."

"What kind of school teaches eavesdropping?" Quigley interrupted, causing the others to look over at him with smiles on their faces.

Karen put the newspaper down on the desk, beside a picture of her beloved family.

"Come on children. It's past your bedtime. Got a big day tomorrow."

Isadora closed her book.

"What's tomorrow?" she stood up, closely followed by Duncan.

"It's a secret," Quentin remained put, but gave his daughter a secretive look.

She looked at him, smiling, before following her mother and brothers away to their room. As they rounded the corner, Isadora looked up at her mother instead.

"Can _you_ tell us?" she whispered.

"I'm afraid not," Karen smirked. "That would ruin the surprise."

As fast as they were gone, Quentin bent down and opened the second drawer on the desk. It only had one piece of content.

A V.F.D. spyglass.

Quentin carefully took it out, and closed the drawer. He looked at it for a few seconds, thinking over the whole mission he had just been on. It had been hard, trying, and tiring. In fact, he still felt he needed some sleep, so with the help of his cane, he started making his way to his bedroom.

Isadora had asked what tomorrow was, and the answer was a big day. They were finally going to tell the triplets about what they had been doing these last weeks. They were going to tell them about V.F.D., the Baudelaires, and everyone else. Tomorrow was certainly a big day, and Quentin couldn't wait to tell them all the secrets he had kept ever since they were born.

But little did he know, he would never have the chance of telling them. That was all because of the person, sitting in that white car outside...


	2. The Furious Fire

**I forgot to mention this in the last chapter, but I absolutely****_ love_**** reviews. So please write your opinions on the story, as I would love to read them. Thanks :D**

* * *

Isadora woke up to her nose tingling. A stinging, dark smell was finding its way into her smelling system, and by doing so, waking her up. With eyes half unable to see, she sat up.

"Quigley, Duncan, are you awake?" she rubbed her eyes, which should have made her able to see clearly again.

It didn't. It seemed like there was some kind of layer of dark and foggy air. Even with this blocking her vision, she could easily make out the other two beds in the room. Duncan was asleep in the one beside her, but the one closest to the window was empty.

Isadora threw the blanket off herself, and got out of the bed. She tip-toed over to Duncan's bed, and slightly shook him. He was clearly half awake, as this made him open his eyes widely, and sit up. Almost immediately, he began coughing. This made Isadora cough too.

"Duncan, what's going on?"

Duncan tried to clear his throat.

"I-... I don't know," another cough attack hit him.

Isadora looked around her, and after a couple of seconds her usual intelligence caught up with her from the asleep state.

"It's smoke."

"Then we have to get out of here."

"Where's Quigley?"

"I don't know."

"How do we get out?"

"Don't know that either, we're on the second floor. Should we try to find the source of the smoke?"

"Maybe. But what if there's a fire. When there's smoke there's usually fire"

"Do we have any other choices?"

Isadora looked around her.

"No."

The two triplets went over to the big double door, and when they opened it they were met with an even bigger layer of smoke. There wasn't only smoke though. Orange, hot flames consumed some of the rooms, and the two triplets had just rolled a lucky number on the dice as their room hadn't gone up in flames too. Both of them immediately started coughing when the smoke entered their lungs.

"Mother!"

"Father!"

"Duncan! Isadora!"

They heard their mother's voice coming from the staircase, and so they ran there as fast as they could. At the bottom of the staircase stood Karen. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw them, but smoke and the bright light of the fire filled the space behind her.

"Mother!"

"Isadora! Duncan!"

Isadora was just about to start running down the stairs when a flame-engulfed piece of the chandelier fell down onto the staircase, blocking it. Duncan and Isadora could no longer see their mother, but her raspy voice could still be heard.

"You have to find another way out! Meet us outside! Quigley's down here, and so is your father! We _will_ see you again!"

"Okay mother!" Isadora turned around, and ran back up the three steps she had gone down.

She caught up with Duncan, who had gone back in their room.

"What do we do!?"

"Grab anything that may be necessary, and... we'll get down from the balcony"

Isadora just nodded, as she didn't want any unnecessary smoke filling her body. Duncan ran over to the window, and grabbed his notebook from the table, and Isadora took her book of poetry.

"Get down"

Duncan shoved the notebook in his pajamas pocket, and got down on all fours. Isadora did the same, except she was carrying her book with one arm. As fast as one could move forward on all fours (or threes) they made their way over to one of the balconies.

"You go first," Duncan stopped to quickly clear his vision.

All the smoke made his eyes water like crazy, and it was already hard to see anything.

Isadora took a steady grip of the railing, and swung her legs over. In this situation, she was happy to be pretty flexible. A few seconds later, Duncan did the same, just a little less smoothly.

"Where do we go from here?"

Duncan looked down behind him. It was a pretty long drop. One floor was a little more than three times taller than them. If they just let go they could break several bones. This could lead to them not being able to move, and burning up as the mansion collapsed.

"I don't know, Isadora"

A sudden idea formed in Isadora's brain.

"We'll climb down the tree"

Just a couple of meters away from the balcony, stood a tall, beautiful oak. If they just shuffled their way over to it, they could reach it, and climb down safely. Their backyard didn't have a fence, so they could just walk around to the front from there. Duncan looked hesitant, but started shuffling his feet after Isadora, who had nearly reached the tree already. Duncan frowned worryingly at the tree.

"I haven't liked that tree since Quigley fell out of it"

"Neither have I, but what other choice do we have?"

None. They didn't have another choice which would hopefully leave them in one piece. Isadora carefully let go of the railing with her right hand, and let her left cling onto it even harder. She grabbed the closest branch of the three, and carefully put her foot on a slightly lower branch. Her heartbeat sped up by a thousand miles as she let go of the railing, and put all her weight on the tree.

She took a few heavy breaths, before giving Duncan a shaking thumbs up.

He bit his lip as he grabbed the branch Isadora was on. He repeated the same action as her, as a deep feeling of malaise formed inside of him. The two triplets were now slowly and carefully climbing down the big oak tree.

At last they could put their bare feet on the dry grass. Not one second after landing, they ran as fast as they could to the front of the house. The whole Quagmire mansion was covered in bright red and orange flames. It lit up the whole area around it, giving a look like the house was shining.

To the two triplets, all there was was their now rickety home going up in a lurid fire.

In a panic, Duncan started frantically looking around him. Isadora couldn't take her eyes off the burning mansion though.

"Where are they!?" Duncan cried.

It was no longer the smoke irritating his eyes that made him cry. Isadora did her best to not start bawling when she realized it. Quigley wasn't coming out of the house. Neither was Quinten, nor Karen.

"They should be here now!" Duncan ran a few meters away from his sister, just to check the surrounding area. He subconsciously knew what had happened already, but he couldn't accept it. None of the other family members were seen anywhere. Not standing, not laying. The only thing approaching them was the fire truck, speeding down the road to save them.

The big, red truck pulled up, and a dozen firemen jumped out, and immediately started attempting to extinguish the massive flames. A thirteenth fireman noticed the two siblings looking at the house in panic. She ran over to them.

"Are you the Quagmire kids?"

Duncan nodded, and Isadora let out a slight; "Yes".

"What are your names?"

"Isadora Quagmire"

"Duncan Quagmire"

"Alright. Do you know if anyone is in the house?"

"Yes, our mother and father!"

"And brother!"

"Their names?"

"Quinten, Karen and Quigley Quagmire," Isadora quickly stated, before wiping a plethora of tears off her cheek.

The woman got an immediate concerned look on her face, and she turned around and ran towards her colleagues. This was chaos; a terrible acrimony. How had this happened? Why would anything like this happen to them? Where were they gonna go now? It was the middle of the night! The firefighter from earlier returned after telling her coworkers what she had found out.

"Come with me, kids"

She started leading Duncan and Isadora towards the end of the road, away from the house. First when the burning house was out of sight, and the only thing that was visible was the tangerine light from the flames, did she stop.

"Wait here"

She walked over to a nearby tree, where she took her phone out, and started talking to someone.

Duncan turned to Isadora.

"How could this happen?"

Isadora shrugged.

"I don't know," she gasped to avoid screaming from sadness.

"Duncan?"

Duncan looked at his sister in complete distress.

"What are we gonna do now?"

Duncan didn't get an answer. Just a row of devastated sobs from Isadora.

"Mr. Arthur Poe from Mulctuary Money Management is coming in a few minutes. You'll stay with him for the night before we get any survivors out," her tone revealed she wasn't as sure as she tried to sound about the survivor situation.

Those few minutes went by like hours. While crying to the sound of the fire department trying to extinguish their collapsing house, the two triplets hugged each other tightly, and didn't let go until almost ten minutes later, when a black car pulled up.

A black man, dressed in what looked like a put-together-last-minute outfit stepped out from the driver seat.

"Hello there. You must be the Dylan and Ingrid, the Quire children"

Duncan and Isadora gave each other a quick confused glance.

"We're Duncan and Isadora Quagmire," Duncan managed to explain in his sobs.

"Tomato tomato," Mr. Poe answered, pronouncing the word differently. "I'm Arthur Poe, and I'm here to pick you up so you can sleep at my house for the rest of the night"

Once again, the two triplets looked at each other with confusion, concern, and worry. Then they followed Mr. Poe into his car, and drove away from their home.


	3. The Tender Town

**In a review, I got a question about the book "****_Female Finnish Poems_****". I don't know the origins and meaning behind the book, as I did not come up with it. In The Miserable Mill, the scene I wrote about in the last section of chapter 1 is featured. There, Isadora is reading a book. On the cover, the title says; "****_Female Finnish Poems_****"**

**Thanks for the advice, correction, and question, Qoheleth!**

* * *

"Wake up children. It's time to go to Rosebud Hills."

Duncan and Isadora forced themselves to sit up on the one bed the Poe's let them share in the middle of Edgar and Albert's room. Mr. Poe stood on the stairs, only so you could just see his full face, smiling at them. He was already fully dressed, wearing a grey suit, and a hat to cover his hair. When the Quagmires didn't do anything, he turned his eyebrows down.

"Well, why aren't you getting dressed?"

Isadora and Duncan looked at each other.

"All... all our things were destroyed," Isadora quietly explained.

"How could you forget, love of my life?"

It was Eleanora, the editor of The Daily Punctilio.

"I showed you the front page of today's edition."

She appeared up the stairs, holding a newspaper. The headline read; "_HUGE FIRE AT THE QUAGMIRE MANSION: EVERYTHING DESTROYED._"

The two triplets looked at the newspaper in total horror.

"Everything's gone?" Isadora whispered.

"Well, we can't be sure. The Daily Punctilio barely writes anything truthful," Duncan commented, not caring at all that the editor stood in the room.

"Mrs. Poe? When you wrote that everything was destroyed, were you honest?" Isadora turned from Duncan to Eleanora.

"Of course I was, Quagmires. The only thing the fire department found was broken things, ashes, and the burnt bodies."

Duncan could feel his eyes quickly watering, and Isadora didn't move an inch.

"Mother and father..."

"Quigley..."

"Don't worry, Quagmires, no time to be depressed. We have to go now."

Duncan and Isadora got off the bed. As they followed the Poe spouses down the stairs, and through the house, they could feel their bodies weakening. They had lost everything. Their parents, their brother, their home. Everything... The only thing they had left was Duncan's notebook, and Isadora's book of poems. It wasn't nearly enough to fill the hollow space the fire had left in them.

No other thought found their way into the two triplets' minds while they were sitting in the backseat of the black car, listening to the Poes talk about some orphans they lost. Mr. Poe constantly complained about that his promotion would disappear because of it, while Mrs. Poe was arguing against him, saying how the other orphans' disappearance caused a lot of people to have higher interest in reading her newspaper. They argued, but at the same time supported each other's issues.

Meanwhile, Duncan and Isadora both supported each other at the time, and understood each other's issues. They didn't talk much during the car ride to Rosebud Hills, but they sat close together. It was hard not to, seeing as they were cramped together between Edgar and Albert.

According to Mr. Poe, they were not allowed to stay home alone since what had happened the last time they left them alone. Albert had tried to defend himself, saying that he didn't mean to break the TV. The bowling game had just gone out of control.

The Quagmire triplets found the story strange and not that convincing, but they weren't involved in the conversation at all, so how did it matter? They didn't even know the Poes, and they hadn't been there when Edgar and Albert supposedly broke the TV.

Personally, they had barely broken anything in their home during the thirteen years they had lived there. None of the precious sculptures, expensive furniture, and important memories. The fire had broken down all of that. Nothing was left... and neither was their family. Duncan and Isadora were alone, on their way to someone they didn't even know, who lived in a place they had never heard of.

Yet there it was. The car took a turn by a sign pointing to "Rosebud Hills" and "Village of Rosebuds". The further they drove down the old road, the more hills appeared around them. Low and high hills, just low mountains covered in rose buds. Then they reached the town. At the time, they were on top of one of the hills, looking down at the village in the valley. It was a cute village, reminding the Quagmires of multiple fairy tales Karen had told them.

"Did you know, Quagmires. This town is not featured on most maps."

The Quagmires looked up, surprised that Mr. Poe was talking to them and not his family.

"No. We didn't know that," Duncan answered him.

"Well, now you do."

"Yes. We do," Isadora glanced at Duncan with a concerned face.

"Your new guardian lives in the very middle of the village with her wife. Their names are-," Mr. Poe was interrupted by a coughing fit.

Duncan and Isadora looked out the car window. They couldn't see much, seeing as they were in the backseat, and couldn't see forward. Although their field of view was big enough for them to spot a bungalow in the town square.

"Here we are, Quagmires."

They had pulled up to the little house. Mr. Poe opened his car door, and got out.

"Wait here with the boys, Darling," he smiled at his wife. "Quagmires, you can't stay in there. Come out."

"Go out on his side," Edgar said, referring to his older brother.

Isadora carefully stood up in the little space she had, and Duncan did the same. She was just about to step over Albert's legs, when;

"Go on his side."

The triplets turned around, so Duncan was now leading them out to the left.

"Go over Albert."

They shifted again.

"No, Edgar"

"Go out on his side."

"No, his."

"Albert's."

"Go out on Albert's side, twins," Mr Poe interrupted, leading to Albert frowning at his father.

"We're triplets."

"Your brother dying changes your birth identity, _twins._"

Duncan and Isadora both gave Mr. Poe discreet death glares as they stepped over the legs of the oldest Poe child. Mr. Poe closed the door behind them, and together they walked up to the house. He harshly knocked on the light wooden door a few times. Footsteps were heard from inside, and not after long, two women opened the door.

One of them was a brown eyed blonde, wearing a light blue blouse and a black skirt. The other one was shorter, had brown hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a pale yellow jacket, and a pair of jeans.

"Oh, hello there, you must be the Quagmire triplets!" the blonde said.

Both Duncan and Isadora got an immediate vibe of comfort from them. Just those simple words immediately put a little smile on Isadora's face.

"We are. I'm Isadora Quagmire, and this is my brother Duncan."

"I am Lorelei Wandelore, and this right here is my wife Brielle," the brunette smiled happily, giving off a just as nice vibe.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Duncan was also grinning now, to the best of his abilities, seeing his and Isadora's circumstances.

"Oh good gosh, you two are in sleepwear," Brielle immediately crouched down slightly, to get down to the triplets level. "Let's go in and get you in some more comfortable clothes."

"That would be nice."

Isadora and Duncan smiled comfortably at each other, as the kind women led them into their house.

"Well, this probably can't go wrong in any way," Mr. Poe loudly said to himself as he stepped back into his car.

At the same time in the bungalow, Lorelei and Brielle gave the Quagmires a quick tour. The house wasn't large, but it was big enough to satisfy the house needs of the Quagmires. They had a cute bedroom to share, a social calico cat, and two very nice women taking care of them.

After the tour, Brielle and Lorelei sat the children down in the little living room.

"Now we know what has happened to you just a few hours ago," Lorelei explained.

"Losing your parents and brother must have been so hard on you. I know how close you were," Brielle continued.

"Did you know our parents?" Isadora leaned forward, as she suddenly felt more interested in the conversation.

"We certainly and absolutely did," Lorelei nodded.

Both her and Brielle started smiling. The triplets however, didn't.

"Then why don't _we_ know you?" Duncan quietly took his commonplace book out of his pocket, and opened it.

Brielle and Lorelei exchanged a serious look.

"I'm afraid that's something we're gonna have to wait to tell you about until tomorrow."

Brielle nodded, and continued her wife's answer;

"Parts of it."

Both of the Wandelores stood up, and left the room. Duncan quickly grabbed a pen from the coffee table in front of him, and wrote the few things they had just gotten to know down in his notebook.

Their parents had friends they never told them about, but why? After almost a whole quiet minute, he remembered that it wasn't the only thing they didn't know about Karen and Quentin. They had barely told them anything about their past friends, jobs and just past life in general. Only about their childhood, but nothing about their adult life before having the triplets.

Well, perhaps they could get some answers at this place, The Rosebud Hills - The town that wasn't even on most maps...


	4. The Wonderful Wandelores

The first day with the Wandelores went by quickly. Lorelei and Brielle showed the triplets around town, and it only took about half an hour, since the town was so little. Although the place didn't stretch so wide, it was aesthetic to the nines. Hills covered in rosebuds surrounded the town. The only trees visible were cherry trees bearing beautiful pink leaves. Not many people lived in the Village of Rosebuds, but the few that did were wonderful people.

In the town, there was a tiny library, a café, a supermarket, and several small places for individual and group entertainment. It truly seemed perfect. Nice town, nice people, nice living arrangement. The two nicest people in town were Brielle and Lorelei, at least according to the Quagmires. Seeing as the Wandelores were their new guardians, they might be a little biased, even though they had only been there for a few hours.

Brielle had given them some new clothes, and Lorelei cooked a marvelous lunch. Not including their parents, these lovely spouses were the best guardians they had ever had. The only other ones the triplet's had stayed with for more than a couple of days were some friends on sleepovers, but this was already much better. Lorelei was a wonderful cook and a friendly woman. Brielle was almost more motherly than Karen, and was so extremely sweet. She barely had anything against anyone.

Both of the Wandelore wives had a way to make the Quagmires feel at home. They barely even thought of their dead parents and brother. Enough to respect and miss them, but not so much that they cried every waken hour. That was what made them so great.

Nine hours after the two triplets arrived in the Village of Rosebuds, they sat around the Wandelores circular dining table for the second time. Lorelei had cooked a home recipe for vegetable soup, which of course tasted incredible. The tomatoes, corn and paprika felt like heaven in their mouths.

"Hope this meets the quality of the food you're used to, triplets," Lorelei smiled as she looked up at Duncan and Isadora, who were excitedly putting spoonful after spoonful into their mouths.

"This is better," Duncan politely announced before filling his spoon again.

Isadora nodded, with her mouth full of the goodness that was Lorelei's food.

"I'm glad you think that way."

The two triplets smiled at their guardians, who were delicately eating the soup. Brielle and Lorelei smiled back, before each of them turned back to their food. Duncan scooped up the last content of his soup bowl, and put the spoon in his mouth. He was so full, he felt like he could pop any second.

"I'm finished," he sat back on his chair, letting his hands fall down onto his lap.

"Want me to make this regularly?" Lorelei asked, grinning full of hope.

"Please do that," Isadora felt glad just by the thought of eating this deliciousness every two or three weeks.

"Then we can make sure she will," Brielle laughed.

The others happily joined her, and just had a good time in the midst of the Quagmires sorrow. They didn't even think of their parents at that moment. That was of course until Duncan's hand slid down from his lap, and he felt his pocket. His notebook was in there, and it reminded him of something.

"Brielle, Lorelei, you said that you will tell us how you knew our parents tomorrow. But do you think you can do it now?"

Brielle and Lorelei's smiles faded, and they gave each other a reluctant look. Lorelei slightly shrugged to Brielle, who turned back to the triplets.

"We can tell you some of it. But for it, you need to come with me," she stood up.

Duncan stood up without hesitation, as his journalist instincts took over. Isadora quickly forced the last few scoops of soup into her mouth, before following along. Brielle led them out of the kitchen, through the hall, and into her and Lorelei's room.

The room wasn't greatly big, but it was cute. A double bed, a wardrobe and a bookshelf were all the furniture in the room. All sorts of things filled the bookshelf. Plants, pencils, figures, and of course, mostly books. Brielle walked up to it, and pulled out a certain book. It was black, with some golden details, and the title written across the front.

'_The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations_'.

Duncan and Isadora looked at each other in slight confusion, and shock when Brielle showed them the book.

"This is it," Brielle looked down at the book, and bit her lip. "Are you sure Karen and Quentin never told you anything about this?"

"One hundred percent," Isadora nodded.

"Can we look in it?"

Brielle's face got a sudden worry added to it.

"Maybe... maybe tomorrow."

She put the book back, and left the room in a hurry. Voices a couple of seconds later told the Quagmires that she had gone to talk to Lorelei. A second after she left, Duncan sat down on the bed, and pulled out the dark green commonplace book from his pocket.

"What are you doing?" Isadora slowly sat down beside him, and glanced at the book.

Duncan was hastily drawing a picture of the book on one of the pages.

* * *

Later that evening, the Quagmires lay in their beds for the first time. Their bedroom wasn't bigger than the Wandelores, and it was just on the other side of the wall from them. They could hear the two women talking to each other, but no specific words could be made out.

Isadora lay in her bed, on the side of the room closest to the window, thinking about her deceased family members. Not even 24 hours had passed, and so much had already happened.

A fire had mysteriously started, Duncan and her had escaped by climbing down a tree... the others died. Together with Duncan, she had spent the night at the Poes' house, before going here early in the morning.

They had amazing new guardians that made them feel so much better after their loss. Then lastly, Brielle showed them that book that Duncan draw in his notebook.

Isadora looked over at her brother.

"Duncan?"

He took his eyes off his commonplace book, and turned his head towards his older sister.

"Yes, Izzie."

"How do you feel about this?"

"About what?"

"All of it. Mother and father... Quigley. The Wandelore's, that book..."

Duncan was silent for a while.

"I... I'm not sure. It's all just... a lot."

"I know."

The siblings looked down.

"I just wish it had never happened," Isadora could feel her eyes start itching with tears.

When she looked over at Duncan she could see small drops of tears already rolling down his face.

"It would feel a lot better if Quigley was here...," he mumbled, just so Isadora could hear it.

A slight smile crept up on Isadora's face.

"I can't even remember the last time he cried."

Duncan shook his head, and let out a little snort.

"We're the ones who cry."

Now he was smiling too.

"Especially you," Isadora's comment made both of them laugh.

"I don't know if I've ever cried and laughed at the same time before."

"Happy crying?" Isadora suggested.

"Yeah, but I'm not happy crying now."

"Neither am I."

Then there was silence. The two triplets just lay in their beds, crying but smiling over their lost family.

"At least Brielle and Lorelei are good," Isadora said, thinking about the two incredible dishes Lorelei made.

Duncan didn't respond. Isadora looked over to his side of the room. He was looking at the wall with a blank facial expression.

"Duncan, is everything okay?" Isadora sat up.

Duncan slightly nodded.

"I feel like they're hiding things from us. Just like mother and father were."

"Don't tell me you got trust issues now," Isadora grinned.

Duncan fell victim of her contagious smile, and forced himself to sit up too.

"No. I don't. I just wonder why Brielle seemed so unwilling to show us that book earlier."

"I do to, but I'm not diving into it."

Duncan went quiet. He knew it sounded stupid, but he couldn't _not_ start investigating. It was his duty as a journalist. Isadora sighed.

"You know what. I think we should just sleep now."

Duncan nodded in response, and the two triplets laid back down, and slowly drifted off to sleep.


	5. The Dry Drowning

"Wake up, triplets," a light, happy voice said.

The already half awake Quagmires opened their sleepy eyes. Through the blurry morning vision, they could make out Brielle's tall figure standing in the doorway of their room. She was carrying something, which looked like a tray. When the two triplets rubbed their eyes, that was confirmed.

"Lorelei made scones," Brielle smiled as she held the tray towards the children.

Both Isadora and Duncan gasped, and basically flew out of their beds. Just the smell of the buns was marvelous, and so they couldn't even imagine the taste. The scones _looked_ wonderful too. Little buns, the size of apples, with nice golden brown surface, and a light and fluffy inside. Excitedly, Isadora and Duncan took one scone each, and bit into it. They were right. It did taste amazing. Beyond amazing, it was unbelievable.

"How are they?" Brielle asked with her happy grin still enlightening the room.

"Wonderful."

"Incredible."

"I'm very happy that you think of them in that way," Lorelei stood beside her wife in the doorway.

The Quagmires smiled at her as they took another scone each.

"Now children. We've got something fun planned for today."

Duncan and Isadora looked up in anticipation, as Lorelei nodded. She turned her glance from the triplets to Brielle.

"You tell them."

The corners of Brielle's mouth curved up even more.

"We're taking you to the Beach of Pink Orchids!"

The Quagmires didn't know exactly what the Wandelores were talking about, but judging by their excitement, and the name of the beach, it sounded like today was going to be a very fun day.

"We're going there _right after_ you've eaten breakfast."

"That sounds great," the two triplets nodded, as they looked forward to seeing more of their surroundings.

It turned out the Wandelores hadn't been over exaggerating the Beach of Pink Orchids. It was a small place on the shore of a large lake. The soft sand didn't go on for too long, and only had place for about ten blankets (with a reasonable distance between them). The water however reached out far, and you could barely see the other side of the lake. As with any place around the Village of Rosebuds, flowers (at the beach; flower buds of pink orchids) covered hills surrounded the beach in every directions, except where the water was. Along the sides of the body of water, you could just slightly see that the hills started getting higher and higher the further away you got, soon turning into mountains.

None of the Wandelores or Quagmires were planning on going so far out though. That would just be a waste of time. They would keep themselves in a reasonable distance from the sand.

Both Duncan and Isadora loved going to the beach. It was such a wonderful experience. The soft sand, the hills around them, and the pretty cold water which gave them thrill, and a fair amount of goosebumps at first.

They had always loved swimming. During summers they usually went to the beach at least once a week with their parents and Quigley. Of course, they could never do that again now though. But they still had the memories. Memories of Karen absolutely _loving_ to swim, while Quentin always kept himself in his beach lounge chair. Karen and the triplets would always either drag him into the water, or splash him soaked.

"_Hey you water coward, couldn't you just join us for a minute?"_ Karen would always end up saying.

The '_water coward_' insult always made Quentin laugh, and jump into the water with them. Those were wonderful times, even if Quentin only swam for a couple of minutes.

Duncan and Isadora could impossibly avoid thinking about all those good times as they waded and swam through the crystal clear water of the Beach of Pink Orchids. But for the first time during their first couple of days as orphans, they didn't cry thinking of their perished family. They were slowly coming to terms with it.

Their whole two hour stay at the beach was wonderful, with only a few mishaps, the biggest one of them being Brielle breathing in a bit of water, and coughing more than that banker, Mr. Poe. But then came time to leave. The two triplets and their guardians quickly dried themselves, gathered their things, and started their walk back to the village.

Duncan and Isadora had gotten a little advance, and were walking a few meters in front of the Wandelore wives. They were for once talking happily about their family, and all their fun beach memories of them.

Lorelei and Brielle on the other hand, were having a much more malaised conversation.

"We have to tell them sometime, Lori. And we told them we would today."

"I know, dear. I'm just a little bit worried. They seem like they haven't even heard of the V.F.D."

"That's why we have to tell them."

"When we get to the house?"

Brielle nodded.

"We'll tell them, and show them more of the book as fast as we're home."

"Promise me we'll lock it in the safe directly when we're done."

"Of course. I swore on our marriage that we will lock it in when it's purpose is served, or when one of us dies."

"Then it'll be safely locked in there by the end of the day."

Lorelei was right. _The Incomplete History of Secret __Organisations_ would be locked and secured in their secret safe at the end of the day. Just... maybe not to the reason she was thinking of...

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Brielle unlocked the door to the bungalow and opened it for her wife and the triplets. She walked in as fast as the others were inside, and closed and locked the door.

"You can tell them right now. I'll take the things to the laundry," she nodded to Lorelei, and their bedroom.

"Sounds like a plan," Lorelei said, handing the bag of beach things to Brielle.

Duncan and Isadora gave each other a quick curious look, as they had their suspicions of what was going on. Lorelei gestured to the bedroom door, and the Quagmires followed her inside.

The triplets watched as Lorelei took several deep breaths, sighed and switched between different expressions. She then finally took out the black book from the bookshelf.

"Duncan. Isadora. We know that your parents hid a lot of information from you. And therefore, I am here to answer all your questions, using this."

Duncan and Isadora quietly looked from the book to Lorelei's serious, but reluctant expression. They were silent for a few seconds, before Isadora spoke up.

"What's so special about this book?"

Lorelei glanced down at it.

"It contains answers. Answers to any question you may have about Quentin and Karen's pasts."

"Were they part of a secret organisation?" Duncan could feel his heart almost go crazy inside his chest.

Lorelei nodded.

"They were part of the V.F.D. The Vo-"

A loud, heavy thud interrupted her. All three of them immediately turned their head around. Both the sound of the thud, and the now excessive coughing came from the kitchen.

"Brielle," Lorelei threw the book onto the bed beside her, and ran out of the little bedroom.

Both Quagmires felt themselves starting to breath heavily, and a sick feeling started crippling up inside them. Hesitantly, they slowly stood up, and walked out of the room. Through the open kitchen door, they could see Lorelei falling down onto her knees. The two triplets ran in there when they spotted what Lorelei was leaning over.

Brielle was laying on the kitchen floor, heavily coughing up water. Her chest pumped up and down as she gasped for air through the little space air could go through in her throat. That little clearly wasn't enough.

"Brielle? Dear? What happened!?" Lorelei threw out all sorts of pet names and questions as her wife's breathing got slower and slower.

Brielle was still coughing excessively, and trying to talk.

The Quagmires watched the scene in absolute horror from the kitchen door.

"Call someone Izzie!"

Isadora hastily looked around her, desperate to find some type of phone. She spotted Lorelei's phone resting on a shelf, and so she grabbed it, and quickly dialed an ambulance.

In a state of panic, breathing poorly and inordinately fast, she explained the situation, before putting the phone back. Meanwhile, Duncan watched as Brielle's chest slowly began to rise less and less, and he heard her coughing fade. Then there was silence. Brielle's lithe body was now just laying on the floor, covered in Lorelei's tears, and the water she had coughed up.

Isadora came back, stood beside Duncan, and watched as Lorelei lifted the upper half of Brielle's lifeless body. She hugged her beloved wife while tears streamed down her face. The Quagmires couldn't avoid crying as well, seeing one of their guardians dead, and the other absolutely devastated. They knew how it felt. _Exactly_ how it felt.

There was a pound on the door. Duncan, standing the closest, went over and opened it. Two men, dressed in dark green clothes were standing there. Behind them, an ambulance was parked, and two other doctors waited outside it. The little health center the town owned was _not_ far away.

Duncan gestured for them to come in by pointing towards the kitchen. He couldn't get any words out, hence all he would do if he opened his mouth, was sob. The two men ran into the kitchen, and over to Brielle and Lorelei.

After a minute of inspecting the body, surrounding, and a few answers from Lorelei, the clearly older doctor stated two words.

"_Dry drowning._"

Lorelei looked up at him, horrified and confused.

"It's a term. It means your wife has breathed in water, which has caused her vocal cords to expand, resulting in severe breathing problems," the younger doctor explained.

Lorelei let out a sound of despair, before starting to cry excessively.

"We're terribly sorry for your loss ma'am," the older doctor said, before looking over at the Quagmires. "Are these your children?"

"Fos-" Lorelei sobbed. "Foster children."

The doctor nodded, and gestured for his younger coworker to take care of the children. He stood up, and walked over to them. He led them into their bedroom, where he told them to stay, and wait for further instructions.

The Quagmires waited for what felt like forever, as they contemplated what had just happened. It had just been three minutes, but time felt like it moved slower. After an eternity, the younger doctor returned.

"Mrs. Wandelore has informed me that she's terribly sorry, but she won't be taking care of you anymore."

Duncan and Isadora felt their hearts drop, and eyes water.

"Then... Where are we going?" Isadora asked.

"The bank will take care of that."

An hour later, Mr. Poe arrived at the house to pick up the Quagmires. They said a quick goodbye to Lorelei before getting in Mr. Poe's car. The last they saw of their guardian, was her locking the black, gold lettered book in a safe, hidden in the wall of the hall.

"Mr. Poe... Where are we gonna go now?" Duncan asked, his voice filled with sorrow.

"You're going to boarding school."


	6. The Sorrow School

As Mr. Poe drove the car through a pair of tall metal gates, the Quagmires looked at the place they would now be staying in. It was a large, dark grey building, covered in dead ivy which had once been growing tall on the walls. There was a long drive leading up to it, and along the sides of it were more buildings. They all looked identical, so the Quagmires assumed those were the dorm buildings. But there was something off-putting about the buildings. The roofs were rounded, making them look like tombstones.

Both Quagmires got a sickly unpleasant feeling from just looking at the dark school. The feeling didn't improve when they entered...

Mr. Poe led them through gloomy corridors and dreary rooms until they reached a common area with only one piece of furniture. A brown bench. The only other thing that was remotely similar to furniture were the few grey pillars, reaching up all the way to the brick roof. Each one of them was covered in cracks and holes. The squeaky, unpleasant noise of a very ill-played violin filled the room, and it seemed to be coming from the room sealed by a door on one of the walls. Through the covered window on the door, you could see the silhouette of a man with some very strange hairstyle playing the violin.

"So Quagmires. I suggest you wait on that bench. You're gonna talk with the vice principal," Mr. Poe gestured to the bench.

Duncan and Isadora slightly glanced behind them, and then at each other.

"O...kay," Duncan bit his lip.

"Where's the real principal?" Isadora asked.

"Oh, that is very unclear," Mr. Poe informed.

Silence followed. The two triplets and Mr. Poe just looked at each other, while getting forced to listen to the horrible sound of the vice principal failing to play the violin.

"Well, I have to leave now. There's a certain set of orphans that I need to find," Mr. Poe suddenly got emotional. "My promotion is depending on this, so it is very important I find them fast."

He hurried off as the Quagmires watched him.

"I guess we wait now," Isadora said as she turned around, walked to the bench, and sat down.

Duncan followed her, and they waited... waited... waited... and waited.

It seemed like nothing was going to happen. They were going to sit there until the weird-haired man came out of his office. That happened after almost an hour and a half, when the door was slammed open by that man.

The Quagmires turned their heads to the left, and instantly regretted it when they saw who their new vice principal was. His hair was just as crazy as in the silhouette, only it had gotten color now. He had matching eyebrows, which were very bushy. He looked straight up awful. It didn't help that he was wearing a brown jacket, a creamy white shirt, and brown pants. As the cherry on top he had a maroon bow tie.

He looked confused, and a little surprised upon seeing the Quagmires sitting on the bench.

"Who are you?" his voice sounded a lot like his violin playing.

Isadora and Duncan gave each other a quick worried look, to prepare themselves for this conversation. This man already gave of a vibe of being hard to have a pleasant conversation with.

"We're the Quagmires. Duncan and Isadora. We've been waiting here for a very long time," Isadora explained as she and Duncan stood up.

The vice principal looked like he was using all he had in his brain to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

"Oh. The new orphans. Get in here, I don't have all day."

The Quagmires hesitantly entered the office. Inside there was almost worse than the common area. The room was in complete disarray, with papers and junk scattered everywhere. A partly broken violin lay on the little desk, which was otherwise stocked with music books, and chord papers. The vice principal followed them in, and closed the door. He then continued to just watch the Quagmires with a horrible fake smile as they found a clean place to stand. For the third time at the school, the Quagmires exchanged concerned looks.

"Aren't you going to say '_hi_', or '_hello_', or '_how do you do_?" the vice principal plainly asked as he sat down in an armchair.

"Hi..."

"Hello."

"Hello orphans," he smiled to himself. "Now welcome to Prufrock, and bla bla bla...," he sighed tiredly as he sat down in an armchair.

"Thanks?" Isadora said, highly questioning Mr. Poe's choice of placement for them.

"My name is Nero Feint, and I am the vice principal, and violinist of this academy."

Neither one of the triplets answered, so Nero continued his rant.

"I've been told your boring story about your house, and family and previous guardian's death, and I honestly couldn't care less at the moment. The best student at this school recently said I've gotten better," he happily gestured to the violin on his desk.

To no surprise, the Quagmires felt a little offended at him comment, but decided it was best not to object. Instead, Duncan decided to try changing the topic.

"Vice principal Nero, could you please show us where we're going to sleep. We've had a really tough day."

"_Could you please show us where we sleep, we've had a tough day,_" Nero mimicked with a mocking voice.

Duncan and Isadora frowned at him as he picked up a brochure laying on the desk. He handed it to Isadora.

"You know the architect who built the school and dorm buildings was deeply depressed, but the one who designed the inside of the dorms was certainly not."

The triplets couldn't hold back their smiles as they looked at the picture of the dorm. It wasn't just a little better than the school. It was miles better.

"It looks wonderful," Isadora looked up. "Which dorm will we be sleeping in?"

"_Which dorm will we be sleeping in?_" Nero mimicked before returning to his resting face. "If I were you I wouldn't worry about that."

"Why not?"

"Because you're looking at the wrong side of the brochure."

Nero turned the brochure over, revealing the less pleasant side. The caption read '_The Orphans Shack_'. Duncan and Isadora read the text in complete horror.

"Why do orphans have to live _there_?" Duncan gestured to the (now very dismaying) piece of paper.

"Because anyone who wants to live in the dorms needs a permission slip signed by a parent or guardian, of which you have neither."

Duncan and Isadora instantly detested this man. He was disrespectful, rude, ignorant, and selfish. Not in any shape or form fit to run a boarding school.

"I think everyone should be allowed to live in a dorm," Isadora spat out.

Duncan could see her heating up. The corners of her mouth was turned down, as well as her eyebrows. He grabbed her sleeve as she took a step forward to do _who knows what_ to Nero.

"_I think everyone should live in a dorm_, well I don't," Nero gave her a serious look. "And also, we have a fair share of rules here."

He went on to explain what would happen if anyone was late to class, didn't attend any of his mandatory violin recitals, or visited the library when it wasn't open. Everything was horrible.

A sudden knock on the door was heard. Nero's head was immediately turned towards it, and he grinned.

"She must be here."

"Who's she?" Duncan whispered to Isadora, who answered with a shrug.

Nero opened the door, revealing a girl waiting outside. The girl was short, looked to be a year or two younger than the triplets. She had short bright red hair in a few giant corkscrew curls and wore a pink frilly dress, accompanied with a white and pink striped pantyhose and pink Mary-Janes. On her face was a wide and nasty smile.

"Carmelita! There you are! Could you please escort these orphans away from my office, they're taking up all of my time."

The girl, Carmelita's smile turned genuine for a second as she said; "Of course, Vice Princie!"

That smile was gone as fast as Nero closed the door behind the Quagmires, and the fake smile was back.

"So Cakesniffers! I'm here to get you to your shack, so let's go!" she had an extremely stuck-up attitude talking.

When she sharply turned around and started walking, the Quagmires gave each other a quick questioning look, before shrugging. None of them knew what _Cakesniffer_ meant.

As Carmelita led the triplets through the school, nearly everyone's eyes fell on them. Carmelita answered the stares with smiles and waves, but the Quagmires couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Then they reached a big frame leading to the outside area in the middle of school. Carmelita stopped.

"There's your shack, Cakesniffers. I'm not going anywhere near that if I don't absolutely _have_ to."

Without saying another word, the despicable girl turned around and left them. Duncan and Isadora watched as Carmelita left the corridor before they turned to look at their bedroom instead. It was a small tin shack, which looked like it had been put together in a maximum of ten minutes. The walls were made of broken down pieces of tin roof, and the roof was pretty much the same, just in another color. The two triplets took a deep breath of hope before walking over to their shack; perhaps the inside was better than the outside.

It certainly wasn't. The second they opened the slanting door Isadora's eyes shot up to the ceiling, and Duncan's fell on the floor.

"Fungus!"

"Crabs!"

As they noticed, the tiny shack was _not_ better inside. Stalactites of green fungus covered the ceiling, and small crabs ran around on the floor. The only "furniture" in there were a couple of hay bales, presumably what they were meant to use as beds. Four sets of school uniforms hung on the wall, two with skirts, and two with pants.

If the Quagmires were given the easy task to say what their thought about Prufrock was, they would both say; sorrow, awful and no place fit for young people.


	7. The Perturb Prufrock

It was the day after the Quagmires got dropped off at the horrible boarding school; Prufrock Prep. The vice principal had introduced them to the inordinately cruel rules, and Carmelita Spats, who was clearly Nero's favorite, had showed them to their new "_bedroom_"; a small tin shack with crabs and fungus. Their living place was commonly known as just _The Orphan Shack_, since only orphans would sleep in there (everyone else's parents obviously signed the dorm permission slip).

They hay bales the triplets had been given as beds were extremely uncomfortable to sleep on. They were small, slightly hard, and the itchy straws would constantly poke them anywhere that wasn't covered by the uniform that they had to sleep in. There was nothing in the shack that was even _remotely_ close to resembling a blanket, and so they slept cold.

That was the worst and most sleepless night Duncan and Isadora had ever had. They even slept better when they shared a tiny bed at the Poes' house right after they lost their family and home. Their waking situation wasn't much better either.

Both of them woke up from their extremely light sleep by a hard knock on the shack door. The noise of someone clearing their throat followed. But not in the means of getting rid of an irritation in the throat, more to get their attention.

Duncan reluctantly stood up from his hay bale. He could feel his whole body cramping as he reached his arm out and opened the door. Outside stood Carmelita, with her arms crossed, and an annoyed expression on her face. She wasn't wearing her casual frilly dress though. This time, she had a glossy pink cheerleader dress with a white 'P' on. The pantyhose and Mary Janes were still on.

She rolled her eyes when she saw Duncan and Isadora's tired eyes. "Are you awake, Cakesniffers?"

Isadora nodded, and Duncan voiced his confirmation.

"Good. 'Cause I'm here to deliver a special message."

One of the three students behind her (presumably her "lifeguards") handed her one pink and one white pom-pom. The Quagmires exchanged a look of worried anticipation, before Carmelita burst out into a little song.

"You're not just going to anyone, Mr. Remora wants you in room number one, so therefore you are going there right now. And my name is _CARMELITA_!" she happily sang, while doing a little dance, her curled hair bouncing up and down. In the song, she was referring to Duncan as '_you_'.

"Will I be going to Mr. Remora's class too?"

Carmelita snorted.

"No, Cakesniffer. You're going to room two to study with Mrs. Bass," she said as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

"Then why wasn't that in the song?"

"I don't have time to write two songs!" Carmelita spat out, before she sharply turned and stormed off.

* * *

Later that morning, Duncan walked down the corridor to do what Carmelita's song had told him to; go to room number to go to his lesson.

The second Duncan entered Mr. Remora's classroom he found himself an empty desk on the third row, closest to the door. After everyone had entered he spotted another empty seat at the back, but he already had too many eyes on him. If he got up and moved he would likely burst from being so down-stared. Everyone's eyes averted though when a dull, bored voice filled the room.

"Good morning class. And good morning our latest orphan."

This was exactly what Duncan hoped wouldn't happen. Even more eyes than before fell on him. The students in front of him even turned around just to _look_ at him.

"I'm Mr. Remora, and today, as usual I will be telling you anecdotes from my life that I find entertaining, and you will take notes for upcoming tests."

The old-looking, grey-dressed teacher took up a banana from his desk, and started peeling it. He took a bite before he started telling his story.

"It was a Monday if I remember it right, and I went down to my basement. Down there I found a box I thought I had never seen before, so I took the box, and told myself 'I'm gonna open this box and see what's inside'. So I did, and inside was my old winter gloves. It turned out I had seen the box before. The end."

Duncan couldn't believe it. That was not only the most immensely boring story he had ever heard, but it was also told my the most boring voice he had ever heard. He wondered whether Mr. Remora actually found it fun. Was _this_ what he was going to be doing for language arts? Well, it certainly seemed that way, since everyone opened their notebooks, and started scribbling down words. Duncan pulled out his commonplace book, and wrote down a few short words on Mr. Remora's story.

_Monday, found a box in the basement. Box contained winter gloves._

So extremely pointless. At least his last few notes actually had some kind of meaning. He had recently written about the fire, the Wandelores, and Prufrock. At least that might come in handy at some point. But a story about his teacher finding a box of gloves in his basement? That was just useless! This whole class was useless!

Isadora couldn't say more about her class on the other side of the hall.

She had, just like her younger brother, found an empty seat in the classroom. Also similarly to Duncan, she later noticed the empty seat at the back, and wished she would have taken that one instead.

"Good morning, children. Today, we have a new orphan in our class, which means the length we would get if everyone laid down in a line has increased," Mrs. Bass said, looking straight at her.

Everyone turned their heads to Isadora, who felt like melting into the ground. This was _not_ what she wanted for her first day in class. She kept up a slight, polite smile though, to not make a too bad first impression; orphans seemed to have a bad reputation here.

"Now we're going to continue researching the metric system by measuring objects. First up: this broken dog toy my 23 inch dog chewed up."

Was _this_ Mrs. Bass' idea of math or something? _Measuring things_? What did that teach them? To use a ruler? This could not be how Isadora was going to spend her days from now on. Waking up stiff and cramping in a shack full of crabs, then going to class just to measure random objects.

Isadora sighed. There was nothing she could do about it, except listen, measure, and write down.

* * *

After a slow, dull and unpleasant first day, the Quagmires went back to their shack. It didn't help to cheer up their horrible moods, but at least they could talk alone.

"I can't believe Mr. Poe would put us here," Duncan sat down on his hay bale.

"Neither can I."

They were quiet for a couple of moments while they just contemplated their day of writing down pointless stories and measurements. Everything that was heard was the constant tapping sound of the crabs sprinting around on the floor. The noise made its way into the triplets' ears, just annoying them more and more by the second.

"Uuuuugh! That sound is driving me mad!" Isadora groaned as she fell onto her knees on the hay bale.

She wanted to put her feet on the floor, as the triplets had been taught it was improper to have both your legs on the chair or comfort you were sitting on. But of course, there was this thing stopping her. The same thing that caused the unbearable noise.

"Duncan, we have to do something about them."

"Agreed. But what can we do?"

"Anything, just so they disappear."

"Actually, I think I have some notes on crabs."

Duncan pulled out his notebook and started skimming through the pages.

"Why do you have notes on _crabs_?"

"It was for a biology assignment at our old school," Duncan stopped on a page. "Here."

He read a sentence aloud.

_"Crabs have very sensitive eardrums, therefore they dislike loud noises."_

Isadora smiled.

"That would be perfect. What makes loud noises?"

Duncan thought for a second.

"Metal."

"Great. We can tape metal to our shoes, then we wouldn't have to deal with any effort to make noise. We can use tape from this dispenser," Isadora held up a half broken tape dispenser.

"Why do you have that?"

Isadora rolled her eyes.

"Mrs. Bass said we need it so we can see how much longer things get if we tape them together. But I'm sure we can use it for other matters."

The two triplets smiled, as they took their shoes off, grabbed the nearest metal item they could find, and taped it to the bottom. They put the shoes back on, and stepped onto the wooden shack floor.

Just as expected, the crabs immediately ran off into hiding, under the small pieces of "furniture" in the little room. Duncan and Isadora grinned.

"It worked."

Even if the shack wasn't much, and having to uncontrollably tap dance to avoid crabs wasn't that pleasant wasn't the best living circumstance, the triplets managed to make the best out of their situation.

After that first day at Prufrock they also realized they only had each other. There, no one cared about them. After living there for a few days, they quickly found out that not only Carmelita was against them. Almost everyone joined her side, fighting and bullying the '_Cakesniffing Orphans'._

Things didn't get better when vice principal Nero got Carmelita a pair of tap shoes. Now not only did they have to see her stick out from a mile away, but they were also forced to hear the annoying clickety-clack of her tap shoes as she entered the room. They knew that their lives at Prufrock probably wouldn't improve much, but at least they could hope.

And they didn't know that their entire lives would change again when they a couple of weeks into their stay there got called to Nero's office. They went there, sat down on the same bench as their first day there, and began their waiting...


	8. The First Friends

Almost two hours had passed since Carmelita came to the shack and sang a song about them having to go to Nero's office while performing a little tap dance. Unwillingly and filled with worry, the triplets had made their way to vice principal Nero's office. They had no idea what they were there for. For what they knew, they hadn't done anything wrong. They had been to every single six hour violin recital, without being late or leaving early, they hadn't missed class or failed any tests, and they had just kept to themselves. From their point of view, they had no reason for being there (especially since they were waiting for so long). Except if the issue wasn't them...

They could hear voices from behind them; the other side of the bench. One girl's voice, one boy's voice, and a baby making different noises every now and then. From what the Quagmires unintentionally heard from their conversation, those people's lives weren't any better than theirs. They seemed to be orphans too. Then came a very familiar noise, and the Quagmires couldn't wish it would leave more.

_Click clack, clickety clack clack._

"Hello, Cakesniffers!"

It was Carmelita. Tortured by the fact that they couldn't do anything to help the other kids, the Quagmires listened to Carmelita mocking the apparently new kids. Not soon after, they left with the indelicate pink-dressed girl, to go on their unrequested tour.

**Note: I completely forgot to write a part about the Quagmires looking at the ruins of their mansion, and finding the spyglass. There's no explanation to why I would forget this, since it's a kind of important part. I guess I'm just an idiot, but who cares!? Let's just say I wrote about when they found it. Sorry, everyone.**

"I feel like we've been sitting on this bench for months."

Duncan and Isadora looked down at their feet, restlessly swinging them in different direction. It _did _feel like that. They had been sitting there for so long, listening to vice principal Nero's horrible music that minutes turned to hours. They had nothing to do there either.

If they left, someone (probably Carmelita) would send them right back, and find some reason to mock them with the 'Cakesniffing orphans' tease. If they would knock on the door, Nero would go crazy at them for interrupting a genius while he's rehearsing. If they stayed, they could be waiting there for even more hours. Hours upon hours, upon even hours.

After what felt like another eternity, the click-clacking noise of tap shoes returned, and Carmelita's voice started demanding a _tip_ from those poor orphans. When they didn't give her anything, she kicked the door, and blamed the orphans, who's last name was apparently Baudelaire. Carmelita tapped away, and the new orphans went into Nero's office, leaving the Quagmires alone in the common area.

"What do you think he wants?" Isadora turned to Duncan.

"I'm not sure, but Nero was very clear to mention that Carmelita's parents were alive. I think those others were orphans too."

"Then where will they live?"

"The shack I suppose. Nero said something about where we would live in the case of other orphans, but I don't remember where."

"Neither do I. I hope it's a dorm."

"The one thing I know is that a dorm isn't it."

Isadora looked back down.

"Then what could it be?"

Duncan shrugged.

"It could be anywhere in this wretched place!"

"Then we better get ready to make another place feel like home."

"Nothing here can feel like home," in the corner of her eye, Isadora could see Duncan shaking his head.

"Then I guess we have to make it feel as _close_ to home as we possibly can."

Another fifteen-twenty minutes went by without anything special happening.

The door to Nero's office opened and the Baudelaires went out to the sound of Nero playing his violin, horribly as usual. Footsteps fading away revealed the Baudelaires walked away in another direction the Quagmires couldn't see from their position on the bench.

"We need to do something, Izzie."

Isadora took a deep breath.

"We have to go knock."

They stood up and walked over to the door. Before knocking, they gave each other a quick look of anticipation, and concern. The squeaky, false violin playing stopped, and a couple of seconds later, the vice principal was at the door with an angry face.

"Vice principal Nero, you said you wanted to see us."

"We've been waiting for a really long time."

Nero sighed slightly, before gesturing to the triplets to step inside his office.

"Come in," he said clearly, before mumbling the same phrase twice.

Without further hesitation, the Quagmires walked into the messy office.

"So, orphans," Nero's lips curved up into a slightly mocking smile. "How'd you like to move into a broom closet?"

The triplets stopped right in their movement, and turned around to face their vice principal.

"_Broom closet_?" Duncan asked, hoping Nero was just making it up.

Knowing Nero though, he knew he probably wasn't.

"Yes, a broom closet. Don't make a genius repeat himself!"

Duncan and Isadora glanced at each other. This could _not_ be true.

"Vice principal Nero, if you don't mind me asking; how are we going to live in a broom closet?" Isadora asked, sounding as polite as she could in the situation.

Nero started slightly chuckling.

"You'll be sleeping in the biggest broom closet in the school, which I was kind enough to turn into a bedroom. You'll be sleeping on broken benches that we dumped in there, and your few belongings will be placed on the shelf."

Well, that was a bad living condition. Broken benches, and dusty shelves in a broom closet. Isadora discreetly leaned to her side, and whispered something to her brother.

"At least we can hope there's no fungus or crabs."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the Quagmires had picked up their few things from the shack, and were about to go see their broom closet for the first time. They had been told it was close to the kitchen, next to a fruit bowl in the corridor. When they finally saw said fruit bowl, they got nervous, anticipated, and hopeful.

A couple of meters away from the rusty table with the fruit bowl on, there was a door. It looked a little different from all the other doors, so the two triplets assumed it was their new "bedroom". They stopped in front of the door to take a deep breath. Isadora took the handle, and pulled.

Behind the closet door laid a little room, no bigger than the inside of the shack. It was actually smaller. In the opposite corners of the broom closet stood two benches. One was totally scratched up, and the other one was even worse; almost snapped in half. It really made Duncan and Isadora wonder what the kids of Prufrock did to the benches. Above the broken benches were a couple of shelves, on which the Quagmires put their spare uniforms and books.

"Are we really going to live like this now?" Duncan asked, defeatedly looking around.

"Well, I think it's better than the shack."

Duncan slowly nodded. Isadora was right. This was better than the cold, crab-filled tin shack. They were inside now, there was no danger of getting dripped on, and it was as quiet as it could be, seeing as they were right next to a corridor full of students.

"I feel bad for those other orphans."

"I do too."

The siblings looked down at the scratched and snapped benches.

"Who's taking which bench?" Isadora looked over at Duncan.

"You can take the scratched one."

Duncan didn't _want_ the almost snapped bench, but he wanted his sister to be comfortable.

"No, Duncan. You take that one. I'm taking the broken one."

"Why?"

"Because you're my brother, and I want you to be comfortable."

"And you're my sister, and I want _you_ to be comfortable."

Isadora sighed.

"We'll decide later. Let's go get lunch now."

And with that the two triplets left their broom closet, and went off to the cafeteria.

* * *

They hadn't been in the cafeteria for a long time at all when they heard some familiar voices. In just a second the two triplets recognized the voices of the other orphans. While walking over to their table, both of them immediately turned their heads, and they spotted the sources of the voices.

One boy and one girl were getting food, while their baby stood beside them. The girl was getting food for her.

Isadora's eyes immediately went to the boy. Even though he was a little taller than his sister, he looked younger than her. He had short brown hair, which laid in a slight mess on his head. At first, Isadora couldn't tell much about him, because both him and the girl were eagerly talking to the waiter giving them food.

While Isadora stared at the only boy, Duncan's eyes fell on the oldest girl. She was clearly the oldest, and looked to be a little older than them even. Her long, straight brown hair had same shade as her brother's.

Looking at the conversation they were having with the cafeteria worker, the orphans seemed to be needing something from him. Something more than awful macaroni and cheese. Then Carmelita came and interrupted their conversation by demanding food, causing the orphans to have to walk away.

When they did, both the Quagmires felt immediately starstruck. The oldest girl had beautiful blue eyes, which were just dodging being covered by her bangs. Duncan couldn't help but think she was beautiful. The boy had brown eyes behind a pair of black rimmed glasses. Isadora blushed at the sight of him. He was _really cute_. Isadora and Duncan watched as the three new orphans walked over to the fruit table.

"Oh, Baudelaires, there's some open seats at my table!" Carmelita smiled a horribly fake cutesy smile towards the orphans. "But I'm afraid it's a Cakesniffer-free zone."

She set her tray of various different cakes down on a table before she started chanting.

"Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack!"

Almost everyone in the whole cafeteria joined in.

"Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack! Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack!"

Watching Carmelita torture and bully the new orphans felt horrible. Even worse seeing as the same thing had happened to the Quagmires during their first lunch. No one had come to help them, and they ended up running away from the scene when Duncan almost started crying. Now looking at the same thing happen to some other new kids was enraging. The Quagmires could slowly feel the anger build up inside of them, as the Baudelaire orphans helplessly stood there. You could see in their eyes that they too were pretty miserable.

"We have to do something," Duncan stated.

Isadora nodded.

"What?"

Duncan didn't have time to think. He had gotten enough of this already, and so he stood up, and took a step in front of Carmelita.

"Leave them alone, Carmelita. You're the cakesniffer, and nobody in their right mind would want to eat with _you_ anyway."

Carmelita looked a little shocked at first, as she took a step back. She then crossed her arms in a frustrated manner and sat down.

"Come sit with us," Isadora gestured to the table she and Duncan were just about to sit down at.

The Baudelaires smiled happily, and joined Duncan and Isadora at their table. Little did any of them know that this was just the start of an amazing friendship

* * *

**Hey everyone, I just have two quick things to say.**

**1: This chapter took longer to upload because it is longer than my usual chapters.**

**2: Please review this story. I love reading your reviews, so if you did that, I would love it. Your review can be about anything; that you like the story, that you hate the story(in which case I have a question: Why are you reading chapter 8?), a correction or advice.**

**I'd love everything.**

**Byeee!**


	9. The Benefic Book

As the Quagmires sat down at their table with the Baudelaires, Duncan and Isadora gave each other a hopeful look. Duncan then turned to the other three.

"You'll have to forgive Carmelita. She's so awful Mrs. Bass is considering a life of crime," he looked back at Isadora with a smile. "My sister wrote a poem about her."

Isadora leaned forward to the Baudelaires.

"I would rather eat a bowl of vampire bats, than spend an hour with Carmelita Spats."

She smiled, and noticed Duncan and the oldest Baudelaire girl were too. The Baudelaire boy looked a little different though. He did have a smile, but his eyebrows were slightly turned down, and he seemed to be a little impressed.

"That's a couplet. Ogden Nash uses them."

"I know, I've read all of his work."

Isadora immediately got a rush of happiness inside of her. Most people at this school didn't even know what a couplet _was_. A second where Isadora and Klaus just looked at each other with admiration and awe followed. Isadora then sat back up.

"I'm Isadora Quagmire, and this is my brother Duncan," she gestured to Duncan as she spoke. Duncan nodded once to confirm this.

The oldest girl introduced herself as Violet Baudelaire, and the other two as her siblings Klaus and Sunny.

"It's nice to meet you," Duncan couldn't hold a smile away looking at the beautiful Violet Baudelaire.

She couldn't seem to take her eyes off him either, and they just looked at each other, admiring _the view_. That was interrupted by Sunny making a little noise, which both Violet and Klaus could translate to; _"Get a room"_. The two stopped staring into each others eyes, and looked down, slightly blushing. They _needed_ to change the subject.

"We should warn you about the apples; they taste like horseradish," Isadora frowned at the fruit bowl full of wrinkly apples.

She had made the mistake of taking one on her and Duncan's first day. Everyone else turned their heads towards it as well.

"Everything seems distasteful in this place," Klaus said.

"I hope you're surviving the orphan shack," Isadora gave them a sympathetic look.

So did Duncan.

"It's pretty awful. We were living there until yesterday."

"You're orphans too?" Klaus leaned his elbows on the table.

Duncan nodded, and looked down at his feet, while Isadora took a deep breath.

"We lost our parents in a terrible fire... And our brother Quigley"

"We were triplets," Duncan looked back up.

"I'm very sorry to hear that."

Neither Violet, Klaus nor Sunny could imagine what it would have been like losing one of them. Isadora and Duncan had been looking at Violet's empathetic face, and so not noticing the confused and concerned look Klaus had.

"We lost our parents in a fire as well," he looked down at the table, avoiding eye contact; he knew he would just get far too sad. "It's not fair; one minute you're safe... and happy and... home. And the next-"

"You're in a shack full of crabs," Isadora interrupted.

"At least we can do something about the crabs. How did you guys deal with them?" Violet asked.

"We taped metal to the bottom of of shoes to be extra noisy."

"It scared the crabs, but it was exhausting having to tap dance all the time," Duncan and Isadora explained.

"Nobody likes tap dancing," Violet sighed, as the clickety-clack of tap shoes approached the table.

"Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack," Carmelita began, before tapping more than necessary to her own song. "Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack!"

She ended the dance with a dramatic pose. When no one clapped, she gave them an aggressive smile before tapping away. Isadora leaned forward, making sure Carmelita wouldn't hear what she was about to say (she didn't feel like having a piece of cake thrown at her).

"She's been even worse since vice principal Nero got her those tap shoes."

"I bet I could invent something less exhausting than tap shoes, but I'll need some materials. Can everybody empty their pockets?" Violet asked as she started pulling things out of her pockets.

Everyone followed her request without hesitation. As the Quagmires quickly put their trays away, the Baudelaires took old tickets and receipts, little pieces of metal and random things out. Isadora and Duncan took out their commonplace books, erasers, and a little money. When Violet's pockets were empty, she took the ribbon up, and was just about to tie her hair when something happened.

Isadora pulled out the cylinder-shaped device out of her pocket and looked up, only to realise Klaus was holding a nearly identical thing in his hand. All five of them at the table froze, and Violet stopped tying her hair.

Klaus and Isadora got a sudden feeling that there was something they just had to do. They put their two devices together, forming one bigger device. Klaus twisted his side half a lap, and there was a slight sound.

_Click_.

"Whoa," Sunny voiced, looking at the piece in awe.

Isadora and Klaus looked up at each other.

"Where did you get that?"

"From the ruins of our parents home," Violet answered, looking from Isadora, to Duncan, to Klaus.

"I think we need to talk," Klaus said.

Isadora nodded, and they separated the newly put together device. They really had to go down the rabbit hole with this, and find out _exactly_ what was going on.

* * *

Five minutes later, the newfound friends sat together in the little orphan shack, discussing the matter.

"Where did you guys find it?" Violet stood up on one of the hay bales, a light bulb in her hand.

"We found it in the ashes. We'd never seen it before," Duncan answered.

Violet started turning the light bulb into place on the ceiling.

"Can't be a coincidence. Two fires, two halves of a spyglass."

She looked down at her siblings and friends on the other hay bale. Klaus was holding the device, the spyglass, inspecting the shape, and engravings on the bottom of one piece.

"I think it's more than a spyglass," the Quagmires turned their heads towards him as he put the pieces together. "See, there are dials. Similar to ones I read about for cracking codes."

Isadora looked up at Violet.

"Why would our parents have a device for _cracking codes_?"

"And why would our parents have the same device?" Klaus asked.

Violet handed a tin can to Sunny, who started biting shapes of sea animals into it. A light bulb went on inside Violet's head.

"They must have known each other."

"Then why don't we know each other?" Duncan looked up at her.

He wished they would have known each other before. He could see nothing wrong with being friends with such a beautiful, intelligent and kind inventor.

"It's like they were hiding all this _stuff._"

"Thanks Sunny," Violet took the can from her sister as she handed it to her.

She reached up to the light bulb, and fastened the can to the device she had invented.

"Maybe they were gonna tell us, they just... never got the chance."

"Maybe they were hiding it for a reason," Klaus added.

Duncan and Isadora looked at each other. What reason would they have to keep their children away from each other. Karen and Quentin never told them anything about their past friends. Isadora certainly couldn't think of any reason they would keep her from this handsome, noble and kind researcher. Only in case they were rivals...

"You mean because it's dangerous?" she turned her head to Klaus.

"Maybe. You're sure you've never heard of Count Olaf?"

"I'm sure," she nodded.

On their way to the shack, the Baudelaires had told them about this _Count Olaf_ who was after them and their fortune. About his one eyebrow, ankle tattoo and various disguises and schemes.

"But, since we lost our parents, we've seen a lot of things we can't explain," she added.

"Us too," Violet stated, as she attached some more pieces to the invention. "It has to be connected."

She went down, and pressed the new light switch. The light, and shadows of the animal shapes started playing around in the room. The crabs ran away in under the so called furniture, and Duncan made a comment on how good it was. But even this happy moment had to be broken so they could continue their research.

"At aunt Josephine's house we found a _book_ that looked like it might contain some answers," Klaus said.

That set off an immediate instinct in Duncan, and his hands almost flew to his pocket, and he pulled out his notebook. He had seen a book, just like what Klaus just explained. While Klaus also explained that they lost it in a hurricane, Duncan flipped though the pages, until he found the one he was looking for; the page with a drawing of _The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations_.

"Did it look like this book," he interrupted Klaus, showing the page in his commonplace book.

"Our last guardian locked it in a safe after she lost her wife," Isadora explained.

She thought about it almost daily. The horrific sight of Brielle slowly passing haunted both her and Duncan.

"If we all saw the same book, then there has to be more copies," Violet sat down opposite the others.

"Then how can we find one?" Duncan asked.

Klaus was quick to ask about the library, but Isadora had to break the tragic news that it was only open for ten minutes a day. But that didn't matter right now. They _had _to see that book, or they knew they might never get the answers to their questions...

* * *

The walk to the library wasn't long, but it felt like an eternity when they walked down the hall, anxious to see if they made it in time. They reached the library just to find Olivia Caliban, the librarian, forcing Carmelita out through the doors. It seemed Carmelita had _literally_ killed some mocking birds, which Olivia now insisted should get a proper burial. Carmelita just ignored her, and started sniffing the air. She turned around.

"I smell people who lost their parents in _fires,_" she cruelly said, before walking off, laughing.

Olivia though, seemed happy to see them. She took a relieved breath.

"Quagmires. And the Baudelaires. Lovely to see you; and together I might add."

"Are you still open?" Isadora asked hopefully.

Olivia sighed, and explained she was just locking up, and that they should wait.

"We can't wait until tomorrow."

"We're trying to find a book."

"An important book."

"We think it might have the answers to all of our questions."

"What's the title?" Olivia asked, hoping she could help.

"The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations."

"Let me see what I can do," Olivia replied, with a secretive tone and smile.

She took them inside, and quickly looked through the documents of all the books in the library. To her and everyone else's disappointment, she didn't have the book. And as if that wasn't enough, just when they were about to leave, Nero entered, seemingly very mad that they were in the library after hours (or minutes).

Although that time was a disappointment, both the Baudelaires and Quagmires knew that they could come back tomorrow, and everyday after that, and that sometime soon, they would have that book.


	10. The Careless Count

After the disappointment at the library, the Quagmires followed their new friends back to the tin shack, even though they had to get ready for the pep rally. There wasn't much to do to get ready, they just needed rest for the upcoming five-six hours of horrible violin music. They had promised the Baudelaires to get them some fruit from the bowl right beside their closet. You _needed_ something to eat if you didn't want to starve _and _almost lose your hearing in one night.

After a couple of minutes of walking through Prufrock's dusty corridors, Duncan and Isadora reached the fruit bowl and broom closet. Isadora opened the door, and went in after Duncan.

"What do you think about this?" Isadora closed the door behind her.

"About what?" Duncan was hastily jolting down everything they got to know in his commonplace book.

"About all of this."

Duncan looked up.

"I think it all has to be connected. It's almost the same story, it can't be a coincidence."

Isadora nodded, and thought about the situation. Then a smirk hit her face.

"Duncan."

He looked back up from his book again.

"What?"

"I noticed how you... _looked_ at Violet."

Duncan's cheeks turned pink, and he looked down, avoiding eye contact.

"Shut up, Izzie."

"What, it's true! You like her."

"No, I don't. We... we just met."

Isadora snorted.

"Yeah, sure you don't."

She went and sat down on the nearly snapped bench.

"What about you and Klaus then?" Duncan suddenly said.

Now it was Isadora's turn to be struck red.

"That... That's nothing. He's just a little cute."

"Of course that's everything. _Just a little cute,_" Duncan mocked.

"At least I'm brave enough to admit I think he's cute."

"Fine. Violet's cute... she... she's beautiful."

Isadora smiled.

"_That's_ it."

Isadora grabbed her poetry book of the shelf and the two started doing their own things in comfortable silence. Duncan wrote down everything about the spyglass, the fires, the picture and the book. He knew they were somehow connected. Both all the things, and the separate sets of orphans. There was _no way _these two stories were not connected in some way. It was totally impossible.

"The pep rally starts in ten minutes. We should get some rest," Isadora put her book back, and laid back as comfortable as one could on a bent bench.

Duncan nodded, closed his book, and laid down on his scratched one. They rested for the following five minutes before getting up and walking to the pep rally. There they met the Baudelaires again, and they sat down in some seats in the back. There they could talk without getting interrupted by teachers.

That night was almost wonderful. The only thing that could make it better would be if they were alone with their friends somewhere where they didn't have to listen to violin music, which sounded like a dying cat.

"I don't think I've ever heard an instrument being played so terribly," Klaus said after some ten minutes of the show.

"You know nothing of it," Isadora sighed. "It can get worse than this."

"Then I wish I could avoid coming to any more pep rallies."

"I thought the exact same thing on our first night here," Isadora nodded, understanding the feelings Klaus was having. "I think we all want to get out of here."

"We certainly do," Duncan whispered. Mrs. Bass just walked by, making them unable to talk loudly.

"Why can't you just leave the pep rallies?" Violet asked.

"Nero's violin cleaner and the teacher who teaches eavesdropping guard the doors," Duncan explained. "We found that out the hard way."

"We had to help Nero clean his feet," Isadora shuddered just remembering that day.

After the six hours of Nero playing the violin, they finally got to leave to their respective shack and broom closet. The next few following days, they quickly became better friends with the Baudelaires than they had with anyone in their thirteen years on this planet. One might even say that there was some hints of romance in their friendships.

Even though the living situation at Prufrock was bad, the friend group managed to get through the years there successfully, all because of each other. As they grew up at the boarding school, they even managed to change it. They converted bullies to friends, and after Nero disappeared, they got a better principal who changed the school for the better. After that the Baudelaires and Quagmires lives were wonderful.

Some of the notes in Duncan's commonplace book read that way. He wrote those things on the page where he wrote down his dreams. I'm sad to say that the lines above were all only wishful thinking.

In real life, the bullies didn't change, Nero stayed put, and the school didn't change. Their lives weren't wonderful. They were filled with concern, malaise and sadness. Even though that pep rally might have been good, the future at Prufrock surely wasn't, and neither was their lives in the next few months.

The first eleven days were as good as a day could get at a place like that. The book didn't arrive, and they got teased and mocked by Carmelita everyday, but they developed an amazing friendship, and found out more about each others stories. No wonder; they had six hours to bond every night. For the first time at that austere academy, the Quagmires felt comfort and happiness. For the first time, they looked forward to the pep rally.

On the eleventh day, Isadora and Duncan were happily on their way to the pep rally. The Baudelaires were already waiting there, and so they hurried down the dark halls. They passed the classrooms, several spiderwebs, and Carmelita; who aggressively chanted her new song: "_Cakesniffers living in a broom closet_", which had the same melody as _Cakesniffing orphans in the orphan shack_. When multiple people joined her chant, Isadora quickly decided they should take the less crowded corridor to the athletic field. Sure, it was a longer walk, but at least they would escape the chanting.

As they quietly walked down the dusty hall, they could feel a slight tension in the air. Why was that? They found out when they turned around a corner, and ran into a man. He was tall, had a weird grey hairstyle, and _one_ long eyebrow.

The triplets stopped in their tracks.

"Hello, hello, hello," the man said, drumming his fingers against each other like a movie villain coming up with a plan. "What are helpless orphans like yourselves doing in a place like this?"

"Who are you?" Isadora asked, glancing at Duncan to see if he had any idea.

Judging by his facial expression, he didn't know more than her, but they both had their suspicions.

"Don't pretend this handsome face doesn't haunt your every waking and sleeping hour," slowly, the man started walking towards them. "You will never be rid of me."

Out of a frightened instinct, the two triplets started backing up towards the wall. The man continued on.

"You'll never be safe," an evil grin crept up on his face. "So much to learn, orphans, and I am here to school you."

He chuckled to himself.

"The three of you better... wait," he looked down at a spot beside Duncan, like something was supposed to be there, but wasn't. "You two better, wait... Where's the midget?"

Midget? He must think they were somebody else. They got the answer to that a few seconds later.

"One, two...," the strange man glanced down beside Duncan again, before actually looking at their faces for the first time.

He frowned.

"You're not the Baudelaire's! Who are you!?" now it was clear; he thought they were their friends.

"Who are you, you miscreant?" Duncan snapped back.

This comment made the man raise one end of his eyebrow.

"_Miscreant,_" he repeated. "Oh... I know who you are now."

From having stopped earlier, he now started walking again, and as before the triplets started walking backwards. They hit the wall, and the man stopped.

"You sound just like your mother, _Quigley._"

"Duncan," Duncan corrected.

The stranger huffed, and then went on to talk about their mother, and her reading poetry and activating trap doors.

"How do you know our mother?" Isadora asked.

She couldn't possibly imagine why Karen would know such an indelicate and tactless man.

"Oh, I know _everything_, orphans. I know the number of hairs on each of your heads, the number of sapphires in your secret vaults, the number of tombstones in your family plots."

Duncan and Isadora looked at each other, concerned. The man then mumbled something about getting _two_ fortunes from going to Prufrock.

"Give me back my burrito, you miscreant!" it was the voice of Larry, the waiter who currently worked in the cafeteria.

The man turned his head, giving the triplets their only possible escape. They turned and made a run for it. Quickly but quietly, they ran until they felt they were a safe distance away. Holding their breaths, the triplets walked closer to the athletic field.

"One eyebrow."

"And I bet he has a tattoo on his ankle."

"We have to warn the Baudelaires that something terrible's going to happen. And I don't mean a pep rally."

They practically ran the rest of the way to the field, and spotted the Baudelaires on a row pretty close to the front. Some other kids had probably taken the back row.

"Baudelaires!" Isadora ran in on the row her friends were sitting on.

"We think we're in terrible danger," Duncan followed.

Klaus and Violet gave each other a quick look of worry.

"What's wrong?"

"What did you see?"

The crowd around them stood up to cheer right at the moment.

"We think we saw Count Olaf."

Isadora's voice couldn't be heard.

"What!?"

"We think Count Olaf is here," Duncan spoke as loud as he could, but it still didn't go over the loud students chanting "_Prufrock, Prufrock, Prufrock!"_

They had to get the message out some way, but it would be impossible saying it directly to them now that Nero had started talking about himself. What could they do? What could they do? What could they _do_!?

Something clicked in Duncan's head, and he pulled out his book, and scribbled down; "_COUNT OLAF HERE_" on the first blank page. He was just about to show it to Violet when Mr. Remora rapidly slammed the commonplace book shut.

The moment was already there by then. Count Olaf stepped onto the stage, dressed in the schools red athletic wear, high ankled sports shoes and a turban.

"Count Olaf," the two eldest Baudelaires said in unison.

"We tried to tell you," Duncan said, sadness taking over his tone; he couldn't help but feel he failed them.

"I'm afraid telling us wouldn't help. The problem is convincing everyone else," Violet explained.

"He has obviously already fooled Nero."

Sunny voiced a little noise, meaning "I'm not surprised."

"We're so sorry, Baudelaires."

"It's not your fault, Isadora," Klaus gave her a slight smile.

"I know."

"We have to do something now," Violet said.


	11. The Dreadful Decision

The Quagmires watched in anticipation as their friends ran up on the stage. They barely knew anything about Count Olaf, so they couldn't even help. They could only watch as their friends tried to convince all these small-minded people that this was the dangerous Count.

"Stop the music," Violet commanded as she stepped onto the stage.

Immediately, Count Olaf (or as his disguise was now; Coach Genghis) and vice principal Nero started fuzzing over them interrupting them.

"This so called gym teacher is the notorious villain Count Olaf!"

Everyone in the audience started exchanging looks and words at Violet's statement. Nearly everyone dismissed it. One of the students who decided Violet was incorrect was of course Carmelita, who demanded they got thrown off the stage, so she could continue twirling.

It was horrible to watch. Everyone was in danger, and they tried to warn them, but no one would listen. The Quagmires looked around them for any source of help. When they looked behind them, they could see Olivia stand up from her seat.

"The Baudelaires seem like honest and decent people. I think we should listen to what they have to say."

She sat back down again after what was probably a mean comment from Mr. Remora. But the Baudelaires knew they couldn't just stop, so Violet went on to tell the school about all the crimes Olaf was suspected for.

"-who has one eyebrow instead of two," Violet stated before Nero cut her off, saying there was nothing wrong with being '_bushy_'.

Violet ignored him.

"If Count Olaf were to take off his turban," she threw her hand up to grab Olaf's disguise, but he grabbed her before she was able to even touch him.

He quickly dismissed her, saying he wouldn't remove his turban, for religious reasons. But of course he couldn't name the religion that one of his hench people told him, and so he just mumbled nonsense. Of course he also refused to take off his left shoe, because that was _gross_. When Klaus came with the idea to compare "_Coach Genghis'_" face to Olaf's face in the paper, Nero decided it would be smarter to use the advanced computer system. In a couple of seconds, Carmelita's life guards had dragged the big mechanical device over to Coach Genghis, who took a step back.

"Oh, um... You mean that.. computer?"

"He's sweating; he's nervous!" Klaus sounded hopeful.

"No, I'm not!" Genghis protested. "I-I have naturally leaky pores."

"Will you and your pores please stand in front of this very expensive electronic device, and just clear this matter up once and for all?" Nero asked.

Duncan and Isadora excitedly watched as the Baudelaires pushed the camera to Genghis' face. This was it - The moment of truth! Finally this irksome school would see some justice. Anticipation built up inside of them, and they got on the edge of their chairs.

"_This is not Count Olaf,_" the machine said.

Their hearts dropped when those words came out of the machine. Their last hope was thrown out the window. No one would believe them. Both Nero and Genghis continued ranting about how this was _not_ Count Olaf.

"How many of you want to hear more tiresome accusations hurled at an innocent man from orphans?"

This was their moment. They had to do something to help, at least try to do something. Duncan put his hands by his mouth, forming a sort of funnel.

"Investigate further!"

"We demand that this issue gets further scrutiny!" Isadora did the same.

Devastated at the fact that no one did anything, the triplets looked around them. Not one person seemed to have even _cared _that they showed their existence. However when Genghis announced his new exercise program, everyone went crazy. After a failed attempt at jumping jacks, Genghis started talking about how unhealthy orphans usually were.

Duncan and Isadora knew this to be lies; and they assumed the Baudelaires did too, seeing as the only thing that made them unhealthy was eating the cafeteria food, and sleeping on hay bales and broken benches.

"The Special Orphans Running Exercises. Or S.O.R.E." Genghis announced.

S.O.R.E. Sore. The Baudelaires had told Duncan and Isadora that Olaf wasn't very smart, so they were unsure if he did that on purpose. He very well could have, but it could also just be an unfortunate coincidence.

"I will be offering this exercise to a few _select students_. Will the orphans in the house please stand."

Hesitantly, the Quagmires stood up, and a couple of seats away from them, Sunny did too on her chair. A couple of seconds went by, when; to their surprise; Olivia stood up. Genghis looked around at the five orphans on the athletic field, mumbling while he looked at each of them.

"I choose... _you,"_ he pointed at Klaus without even looking at him behind himself. "And... oh, _you,_" same thing with Violet. "And... little baby secretary I've heard so much about."

Only the Baudelaires. He was _definitely _up to something. He explained to them that every sundown, they would report to the athletic field, to run laps with luminous paint. The Quagmires were unsure _how_ this would help him get their fortune, but he couldn't just be doing it for no reason. This had to be investigated further.

* * *

For a once in a term time, Nero decided to not play the violin for six hours, and let them go after fifty minutes. The fact that he immediately after started talking to Genghis told the Quagmires he had a reason. Well...what to do now except go back to the broom closet to drop off the things they used to keep them entertained during the recital. They followed the Baudelaires as far as they could before they had to turn. It only took a few minutes to leave the things, and they decided to go to the orphan shack.

They hurried down the halls, anxiously hoping they wouldn't run into Carmelita, Nero or Genghis. To their relief and luck, they didn't, and they reached the tin shack without having to say a word to anyone. Through the thin and hardly sound proof walls, they could hear the Baudelaires talking.

As they reached the door they could hear a voice in there saying; "I just can't believe he fooled everyone again."

Duncan swung the door open.

"Not everyone."

"Don't worry Baudelaires, don't feel disgrace. The Quagmire triplets are on the case," Isadora recited as they stepped in and closed the door.

"You're kind and generous friends, but we can't let you get involved."

"Violet's right; Count Olaf is too dangerous," Klaus said.

"He's too dangerous for you to face alone."

"We can run away. All of us," Isadora suggested.

She fixed her posture slightly before quickly explaining how.

"Our parents owned the famous Quagmire sapphires, so when we come of age, we can live on our own."

"We're not of age yet! Besides we tried running away, and we ended up working in a lumber mill," Klaus turned his head to the wall.

The Quagmires followed his glance, and their eyes landed on a picture hanging on the wall. When they saw what it presented, their jaws slightly dropped. They could never mistake the faces of Karen and Quentin Quagmire.

"That's... a picture of our parents," Isadora told them.

"Our parents too," Violet pointed at a couple, whose faces were covered by a stain of the green fungus.

"They _did_ know each other."

That just opened more mysteries. Now it was confirmed that their parents had some kind of relationship with each other, but the kids had never met before. Why? _Why_ was the only question spinning around in their heads. Isadora explained their situation with their photo, and that they never really paid attention to it.

"I bet there were other mysteries we never noticed," Duncan stated, thinking about all the books they never read, drawers and boxes they never opened, and questions they never asked.

"Just like a spyglass."

"Or a book... We just have to survive Count Olaf long enough to see it."

"Olivia said to check back in a day or so."

"We don't have a day or so, it's almost sundown."

Sunlight hit their faces and backs as the door to the shack was opened. When the five friends turned their heads there, what they saw wasn't pleasant. Carmelita, and her lifeguards. One of them placed a tap stage before the door, and Carmelita stepped onto it.

"I'm here to deliver a special message to the _Bau-_delaires_._"

The Quagmires and Baudelaires looked at each other for a second before Carmelita broke out in song and tap.

"The sun it setting, hooray hooray. Coach Genghis sent me here to say; the Baudelaire orphans go to the field! And my name is CARMELITA!"

As always she ended in a dramatic pose.

"That doesn't even rhyme," Isadora said and sighed.

"Only Cakesniffers care about poetic form!" Carmelita stormed off, and one of her lifeguards slammed the door, causing the Quagmire's to flinch.

"Well... We have to go these Special Orphans Running Exercises," Klaus picked up Sunny.

"Count Olaf's definitely luring something behind that," Duncan stated.

"We think so too," Violet said.

"You can tell us if anything seems suspicious," Isadora said supportively.

"We will. Thanks for helping us," Violet smiled before walking out of the shack.

Her siblings and friends followed her.

"That's what friends are for, right?" Duncan returned the smile.

"We'll check if Olivia has gotten the book yet," Isadora said.

The Baudelaires grinned at them, as a way of saying that idea was great. Duncan and Isadora couldn't help but smile as well, before the friends went off in different directions.

The Quagmires went straightly to the library; no shortcuts or detours. They reached the library just in time to see Olivia closing up. Isadora ran up to her before Duncan.

"We know it's after hours but were you able to find that book?"

"I'm sorry. I know you're desperate to get your hands on it."

"There's not just the book. There's a whole mystery," Duncan had caught up.

"There certainly is."

Duncan and Isadora frowned, confused at Olivia's statement.

"I couldn't find the book in our system, so I poked around. It's not in any system at all. It's like it doesn't exist."

They were interrupted by Nero, who was furious at them for not being where they should be. It turned out he was there to close the library, by order from Genghis. This not only meant they couldn't get the book, it also meant Olivia lost her job.

Over the next following days, they spotted her serving food in the cafeteria. They also noticed the Baudelaires getting more and more exhausted from running laps all night, every night. Things took a vastly sharp turn when they got called to Nero's office. Later that day, they gathered in the shack, and Violet and Klaus broke the news.

"We're getting home schooled."

"And we have a big test to take in front of everyone; about everything we've learned. Nero's expelling us if we fail."

"But we still have to run laps."

"And come to the recital."

Duncan and Isadora listened in horror.

"He can't expel you!" Duncan yelled.

"Sadly, he can actually do that," Klaus hesitantly broke the bubble.

"But doing all of that would be impossible. You'd have to be ubiquitous."

"Violet, do you think you could come up with something we could do to help, so you can study?" Duncan suggested.

"I hope so," Violet pulled out her ribbon, tied her hair back, and sat down on a hay bale.

She closed her eyes, and the others waited as the thought. A not short amount of time went by.

"Violet, I don't think we have much time," Klaus warned, as he could see it getting darker through the tiny window.

"I think I've got it," Violet opened her eyes, and explained her plan.

* * *

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	12. The Perfect Plan

The Quagmires and Baudelaires hurried down the halls. They were on their way to the best place for getting supplies for a plan like this - the Cafeteria. It was late, so no one was there, meaning it was safe to do secret stuff in there. Stuff you wouldn't want anyone else to know about. Like this plan. No one could know, and so the friend group were very discreet when they reached the doors to the cafeteria. Duncan and Isadora quietly pushed the door open just enough so they could see if anyone was in their.

"Coast is clear," Duncan announced after he had scanned the room.

Him and Isadora stepped in, and pulled the door open for their friends. The Baudelaires walked in, and the Quagmires closed the door behind them. As the triplets leaned against the door, blocking anyone from entering, the Baudelaires started going around the room, looking for things they could use as disguises. Violet and Klaus (carrying Sunny) walked in behind the counter, where most things were held. They started going through drawers and shelves, looking for things to use. Klaus set Sunny down, telling her to go find something to use as glasses. As commanded Sunny toddled away, and immediately found some helpful things.

"This will work," Violet took the decorative rim off a cake display, and put them in her pockets.

Meanwhile, Klaus had found some gloves.

"These will come in handy," he said, not realizing the pun he just said.

"Okay we need to find something for the body."

Duncan and Isadora watched as the Baudelaires picked up a bag of flour to use as Sunny's body. A sudden creaking noise was heard as the a door opened. They had totally forgotten there were _two _doors to the cafeteria. The Quagmires and Baudelaires were running to a hiding place when a very intimate clickety-clacking echoed in the room.

Carmelita was entering.

They felt extremely lucky that it was dark at the time, and their dark uniforms did a good job at blending in. Carmelita steadily strolled across the room, hands on her hips, watching carefully to try to spot anybody. She ran the last few meters to the cake display, eager to see the cake.

Both triplets had a very hard time holding in their laughter as the infamous bully had to get a bucket to stand on in order to reach the cake. And when she well did, the laughter got even harder to hold in. She let her face fall right into the cake as she sniffed it.

As things turned out, she was the real cakesniffing cakesniffer.

Her nose and mouth were covered in icing sugar when she got her head back up. Now it was her turn to have a hard time not doing something; sneezing. She stood for a couple of seconds just whiffing to avoid revealing what she was doing. By now, the triplets and Baudelaires had to put their hands over their mouths to not laugh.

But when Carmelita stormed out, and shut the door behind her they were finally able to commit to their laughing fit. As soon as they could breath steadily again, they left for the library, to put together the props for the plan.

Students hanging out in the corridors and teachers patrolling around caused them to have to take multiple detours, but after a too long while they reached their destination. Now they had to hurry. Too much time had passed with them doing nothing but walk. Violet took a minute to pick the lock, then they were in, and they sat down at a table. Sunny crawled up into an armchair, and bit together a makeshift set of glasses, which she proudly looked at afterwards.

Violet cut off a bit of the decoration rim and gave it to Isadora. She took out a couple of bobby pins from her hair, and started putting her fake fringe on. Up close it was obvious that it was false, but far away in the dark, it would certainly look convincing.

"I'm impressed you know how to pick a lock," Duncan said as he put on some tape on Sunny's athletic shoes.

"You'd be surprised how often it comes in handy," Violet was working on the rope they were going to use to drag the fake Sunny.

As she tied it together, she explained the knot she was making. Isadora got done with her fringe, and looked up at Klaus, who was sitting across the table from her.

"How do I look?"

Klaus looked up from the gloves he was filling with flour.

"Different," a second later he realized how wrong it sounded. "Which is good, I mean not that you didn't look good.. before, I mean you do... did... do... look."

A smile formed on Isadora's face as she listened to the Klaus Baudelaire's adorable rambling. She felt the butterflies in her stomach as he struggled to find his words. A full sentence wasn't necessary though. She understood what he was trying to say; or not say.

"Sunny, how are those glasses coming?" Klaus quickly changed the subject, and looked down at Sunny.

Even though he did his best to hide it, Isadora could see his cheeks were turning pink, and she could feel her own face heating up slightly. Sunny handed Klaus the glasses.

"You guys can still back out now," Violet said for the seventh time. "We can find another way to pass the test."

She felt uncontrollably, and irrationally guilty for making her friends do this, even though they had clearly stated they wanted to help. Duncan shook his head at how caring and cute she was. He wished Violet would tell him something similar as Klaus had almost told Isadora.

"Look, my sister and I won't-" he was interrupted by a rattling noise from the door.

Everyone turned around, and saw the silhouette of someone through the windows of the door. Luckily for them, the windows were covered, and they could only spot them because of the light.

"We better hurry," Violet stood up.

"Us too."

The others followed her up, and the friends just looked at each other. Joy filled them as they knew they had found their absolute best friends and loves of their lives at the same time. Neither the Quagmires nor Baudelaires had ever met such kind, intelligent and understanding people. And doing it at a place like Prufrock was just unbelievable. That's why Violet's statement came off as incredibly sad.

"I have this feeling like we're never gonna see you again."

"You could just go back to your broom closet, and forget all about this," Klaus suggested.

Neither one of those things were happening. First of, there was no way they would ever leave and forget these amazing friends, and secondly, they had to help them stop Count Olaf.

Isadora shook her head.

"Is that what your parents would do?"

"Our parents aren't here," Klaus answered.

"I bet they taught you the same thing our parents taught us," Duncan couldn't avoid smiling at his beautiful inventor friend.

"What?" she asked.

"What friends are for."

Isadora then suggested a plan for how they would get out of the library without people getting suspicious.

"Duncan, you'll need these," Klaus came to the other side of the table, and gave the glasses to Duncan.

Duncan put them on, and they worked just fine - just like Isadora's disguise. Klaus turned to Isadora.

"And Isadora, take this," he gave her the black and golden device. "If anything goes wrong you might need a spyglass."

Isadora took the spyglass, looked up at Klaus and smiled.

"I don't think anything will go wrong. We'll se you Baudelaires before long."

She thought about it for a second before taking a step closer and kissing Klaus on the cheek. Once again she felt butterflies twirling in her stomach, and her cheeks went pink.

Klaus looked a bit like his dreams had just come true. At first he just looked at the ground with a fulfilled smile on his lips. Then he turned to look at Isadora. He knew he couldn't stay though, and a second later he and Violet turned around and left.

Isadora watched with a dreamy grin as Klaus left. It was true that she felt very happy, but she also was very worried about her friends.

Meanwhile, Duncan also looked at the Baudelaire siblings, but there was no smile on his face. He was very, very happy for Klaus and Isadora, as he knew from day one that they were perfect for each other, but a sinking feeling of guilt also took place in him. The second Violet turned around he felt that he should also have done something to show what he felt. The thing Violet had said before, about having a feeling of them never seeing each other again had struck him now. It was a horrible gut feeling, and he just felt like this would certainly be the last time he laid his eyes on Violet Baudelaire. He wished wholeheartedly that he had gotten to kiss her too.

But it was too late now.

* * *

A few minutes later, the two triplets arrived at the dark athletic field. They could see Coach Genghis aggressively shouting at some of his hench people at the other side. Both of them looked down, making sure he wouldn't even suspect something about their appearances. When Genghis started whistling at them, they slowly started walking up to the circle of white paint on the ground. They started running; Isadora up front, and Duncan following her, dragging the bag of flour that was representing Sunny.

There they ran lap after lap, for hours upon hours. The first few minutes actually felt kind of exhilarating, and exciting.

"I know we're doing this for serious reasons, but it's sort of exciting."

"It may not be particularly wise; but it's a thrill to be in disguise."

They continued running, and after a while they legs started slowly going numb. They got sore, and started hurting; it almost felt like they were about to snap off. But to the Quagmires' misfortune, their legs weren't the only things about to snap. If only they had noticed the rope starting break...

They continued on, even after almost two hours had passed. The disguise thing didn't feel as thrilling anymore. The fake fringe started annoying Isadora, and Duncan's glasses were putting too much pressure on his nose. They told themselves they had to continue on for their friends. That thought was what kept them going. Isadora couldn't wait to meet Klaus again, and Duncan felt happy just thinking about seeing Violet. He had forgotten the awful gut feeling.

Then it happened. It went unnoticed by the Quagmires, but not by Olaf. The rope snapped, and their Flour-Bag-Sunny stopped. The worst thing was that they ran half another lap before they heard Hooky shouting; "_Run, baby, run_!"

This could only mean one thing. In total shock and horror, they stopped, looked at the bag of flour, and down at the snapped rope Duncan was holding. The crippling feeling of suspense didn't improve at all when Olaf walked over and kicked "Sunny". Just the thought that he would actually kick the real toddler haunted them. This time though, it was only the bag of flour that exploded in his face.

"What do we do?" Isadora sounded panicked.

"Keep running."

The two quickly turned around, threw off their disguises, and ran from the field as fast as they could. Their legs didn't hurt anymore as the adrenaline kicked in.

"Can we make it to the broom closet?" Duncan asked.

"There's a better place to hide," Isadora grabbed her brother's arm, and pulled him towards the library.

They hadn't locked the door, so all they had to do was run inside and hide. That's exactly what they did. They crouched down behind a shelf, and started going over what just happened, and what they were going to do. But they got interrupted pretty quickly. Both of them flinched as the library door opened, and they could hear footsteps coming towards them. To their extreme luck, Hooky called for Olaf, just as he was about to find them. On the other hand, they weren't so lucky, because Olaf put Hooky on guard duty.

"We have to go warn them."

"We can't go anywhere with him guarding the door," Isadora looked at Duncan, who was sitting on the left side of her.

That's when she spotted it. Duncan could see her facial expression change from fear to realization.

"Look."

Duncan turned his head to, and immediately realized why she gaped. It stood right there, on the trolley - _The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations_.

Without hesitation, they quietly ran over there, pulled the book out and sat down. They took a deep breath before Isadora opened the book on a random page. The page didn't show anything particularly intriguing, so she flipped it over, and there was a whole page about the spyglass.

Duncan immediately pulled his notebook out, and wrote down everything that could be just slightly useful. Isadora followed the instructions in the book, and managed to turn the spyglass into a flashlight. Then they started reading, about everything. Their parents, the Baudelaires, the spyglass, a certain sugar bowl, and an organisation called the V.F.D.

They were so deep into the reading and writing down, they didn't hear the door open, and the footsteps coming closer... and closer. Not before it was too late. They heard a slight creak in the floor, and turned their heads.

A face looked back at them, a big evil grin on it. Both triplets felt their entire insides sink. Not even thoughts of the Baudelaires could have made them smile in the moment. Duncan's gut feeling came back, but now it wasn't just a feeling for him. It was a certainty. They were never seeing the Baudelaires again. The triplets froze for a second, before they at once knew that everything had gone terribly wrong.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

* * *

**A little longer than my usual, but that doesn't matter. Long chapters are my favorite to write, and favorite to read.**

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	13. The Eerie Elevator

**Before we start, I just gotta reply to a review.**

**BelleBlack707 - Thank you so much for everything you said!**

**Now let's get to the chapter!**

* * *

Hooky led the pair of triplets out of the library, his hooks holding onto their sleeves. To make sure they wouldn't escape, he held them half a meter above the ground. He didn't let them go, no matter how much they screamed, punched and kicked. Isadora was in pure rage, while tears were streaming down Duncan's face. Hooky was lucky, because everyone was currently at the pep rally (except the Baudelaires, who were in their shack). Without even one person seeing them, Count Olaf's hench person carried them with his hooks all the way out of the school building. He took a sharp right turn, and led them to a place behind some bushes where a grey car was parked. The triplets assumed it was the Count's car, and this was confirmed when Hooky shoved them in there, and locked the car from the outside. Before wandering off, he said something to them through the window, but the only thing that could be heard was mumbles.

They were alone.

"We failed them," Duncan stared into space, his eyes shining as much as their family sapphires.

Isadora sat down closer to him.

"We haven't failed them. The plan just... didn't work."

"Meaning we failed. Completely."

A light went on in Isadora's head.

"Not completely," she pulled out Duncan's notebook from his pocket. "We found the book."

Duncan straightened his back a little as that thought worked as a light in the dark room he felt trapped in. He took the commonplace book back, opened it, and started flipping through the pages. A lot of them were just notes on Mr. Remora's pointless anecdotes. Some Isadora recognized, as they had text about what had happened at the Wandelores. At one point, Duncan started flipping extremely fast, but Isadora managed to see what those pages were about. Violet Baudelaire. She smiled as she looked at her blushing brother. Then Duncan reached the pages he was looking for.

"Let's go over this," he started on the first page. "The spyglass."

Isadora took it out of her pocket. They tested all the functions that were written down in the commonplace book. All the different things it could be used for surprised them. It could work as a flashlight, could heat up and cool down things, could turn into binoculars, and even more. Now they understood why so many people had one. Isadora had spotted one at the Wandelores, and the Baudelaires told them that almost all their previous guardians had one. Violet had made sure to mention that Monty Montgomery used it while they were watching a movie, but she didn't know why.

Duncan flipped the page. The new page was about the secret organisation; The V.F.D.

"What do you think it could stand for?" Duncan asked.

"No idea."

They continued reading Duncan's notes. The next few were about this secret organisation. About people in it, the Montgomerys, the Anwhistles, the Snickets, and of course; the Baudelaire and Quagmire parents. The book had told about a schism in the organisation which had turned members against each other. While they were reading in the library, Isadora had noticed a very familiar symbol. The tattoo Olaf had on his ankle. Of course Duncan had drawn it in his notebook.

"It said this was the symbol of V.F.D., but Olaf has a tattoo of it on his ankle," Isadora pointed to it.

"Does that mean Olaf was in the V.F.D.?"

This confused both triplets. Their parents were in it, and they were good people, but Olaf was anything but good, and he was also there. Duncan turned the page over, and hey were now on the last page of his notes. The page about the sugar bowl.

"What's so important about a sugar bowl?"

Duncan shrugged.

"The only thing I had time to write down was that it was a part of Esmé Squalor's tea set."

"Who's Esmé Squalor?"

"I don't know that either. A member of the V.F.D."

After that, they found themselves going over the notes over and over. After multiple reads, multiple hours and multiple conversations, the triplets went quiet. They went into their own heads to think about everything that had happened during the evening and night. Neither of them could avoid thinking of the possible scenarios in which everything went well. Even though they wanted it to work as comfort, it only reminded them that nothing went according to plan. Soon, these thoughts put them both to sleep.

* * *

They were waken up an undetermined amount of time later by Count Olaf's troupe barging into the car. Hooky and the white faced women threw the backseat door open and pushed the triplets to the other side. Meanwhile the bald man and person of indeterminate gender sat down in the front seat. The troupe shoved the Quagmires together into a cramped space in the corner of the backseat. Hooky looked out the window, and mumbled something to himself.

"Hurry up, boss," he sounded pretty stressed.

Duncan and Isadora quickly glanced at each other.

"Has he been caught?"

"No," one white faced woman answered.

"Just exposed," the other one finished.

"Those Baudelaire kids were running after him," the man-woman-person answered in a bland tone.

The Quagmires knew what to do immediately.

Olaf came running through the entrance, still dressed as Coach Genghis, except his turban was off. He ran to the car, and jumped in. The second he started the engine, Isadora rolled down the window. Olaf started driving, and very well, the Baudelaires were now standing in the entrance, looking at the car, defeated. That was of course, until they spotted Duncan and Isadora.

"Klaus! V.F.D.!" Isadora shouted as loudly as she could.

"V.F.D.! The answers!" Duncan yelled.

The Baudelaire's looked at each other for a second, before they started running towards the moving vehicle.

"V.F.D.! You have to remember!" Duncan shouted.

"V.F.D.!"

"Isadora!"

"Duncan!"

"We found the book!"

Olaf just laughed at the triplets trying to communicate with their friends, who were desperately running after them. But they were obviously getting tired.

"Can someone please shut those kids up?" Olaf chuckled.

Hooky started hushing them, and so Isadora pulled herself up, and leaned out the window, the spyglass in her hand.

"V! F! D!" she was just about to let go of the spyglass when a hook stopped her, separating the two parts.

Isadora kept one, while the other part rolled down the road. She got pulled back in, and the car left Prufrock's ground. Now Isadora started crying too. Countless tears streamed down both triplets faces as they drove further and further from their friends.

* * *

A couple of hours later, they were in the big city. Or to be more specific; under the big city. They were in some kind of secret tunnel, now being dragged around in a cage, that was for some reason down there. It was like Count Olaf had planned to do this some day.

Through the cage bars the triplets were able to see multiple signs with names and places.

_Montgomery, Horseradish Factory, Baudelaire, Spats, Wandelore... and Quagmire_. Olaf seemed to know exactly where he was leading his troupe, and after a while, he started following the signs leading to "_667 Dark Avenue_". That must be where they were going. But why? What were they doing there?

"Where are we going?" Isadora asked.

"Didn't I tell you to shut up, _Brat-mires_?"

"We haven't done _anything_ to you," Duncan said between sobs.

He was still crying, but Isadora had picked her confidence back up.

"You're a horrible person Count; and that in an inordinate amount," she recited.

"Poetry? Is that where you're taking this?" Olaf rolled his eyes.

The group took a right turn, and were now placed in front of a vault-like door. Olaf pulled it open, and revealed a little room. An elevator shaft.

"This ersatz elevator is _perfect_ for storing orphans if I do say so myself," Olaf watched as his hench people dragged the cage into a corner of the room.

"It is, boss," Hooky nodded excessively.

"We couldn't find-"

"-a better one ourselves."

Olaf smiled as his troupe complimented him.

"Now we gotta get Esmé on board," he shoved the troupe out of the secret room, and just as he was about to leave to he turned to the Quagmires.

"You two stay here."

"We're trapped in a cage. Where do you expect us to go?" Isadora spat.

She stood straight up in the corner of the cage closest to Olaf.

"We won't give up, you know. Either we will escape on our own, or our friends will find us."

Olaf snorted.

"I'm not sure about that. We'll have the Baudelaires in our clutches before long. Besides, it looks like Mr. Quag-cryer has already given up," he slammed the door.

Isadora looked behind her, where Duncan was sitting in a corner, crying. Isadora sat down beside him.

"Duncan?"

He nodded to show he was listening.

"You know that Violet and Klaus will find us?"

Duncan looked up at his older sister.

"And how can you be so sure about that? Count Olaf caught us, how do you know he won't catch them too?"

Isadora thought for a second before answering.

"They've avoided that before. And they wouldn't let him get away with kidnapping us."

"Why?"

"Because that's what friends are for."

Duncan actually smiled through the tears, and Isadora couldn't avoid grinning too. She had always cared _a lot _about her younger brothers, and now that she only had one left, she couldn't care more. Just the fact that she had gotten him to smile in this awful circumstance got her to feel so extremely happy. She moved a little closer, and hugged him. After a second he put his arms around her as well. He couldn't get a better sister.

When they let go of each other Isadora smiled.

"Also. I don't think Violet would let you go so easily."

Duncan looked at Isadora with a questioning face.

"Why not?"

Isadora giggled softly.

"Because she likes you."

Duncan looked down blushing.

"You really think so?"

"I know so, Duncan. Haven't you seen how she looks at you? Everyone sees it."

"I haven't."

Isadora snorted.

"Well, everyone except you, but that's because you're insecure about it."

"Why... Why would I be insecure about how Violet looks at me?"

"Because you like her."

Duncan smiled. He did. He did like Violet Baudelaire. She was wonderful.

"What about you and Klaus then? He likes you, you know."

Isadora's cheeks turned pink.

"Yeah..."

"And what about that little kiss?"

Isadora giggled nervously.

"That was nothing."

"Nothing? You didn't see his face afterwards. He was starstruck!"

A short, and comfortable silence followed when they just thought about their best friends in the world. Violet and Klaus Baudelaire.

"We can't forget about Sunny though," Isadora said, and the two triplets laughed a little.

"Yeah, she's amazing."

Isadora looked down at her feet for a few seconds.

"I actually think she knew before any of us."

"Knew what?"

"That we all liked each other. Don't you remember her comment when you and Violet first talked?"

Duncan chuckled.

"_Get a room,_" he remembered it like yesterday. "I miss her too."

"You know it was just a few hours since we last saw them?"

Duncan nodded.

"That doesn't mean I can't miss them."

"I know. I miss them too."

The triplets continued talking and thinking about their friends, hoping they would come and rescue them. At the time they didn't know that the Baudelaires had just gotten to know who their new guardian would be; Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor and her husband Jerome.

* * *

**You should probably expect another chapter later today, cause I'm on summer break, and I have nothing to do. Throughout summer break, I will be posting at least one chapter on different stories _every single day_. Except when I got to Spain for a week, and if I'm going to visit friends or family.**

**So expect _a lot _of stories, mainly ASOUE. I will probably upload some chapters in the other categories I write for too.**

**I'm excited for this summer, and I hope you are too!**

**Reviews please :D**


	14. The Setback Save

"Very Fine Dining?"

"Various Fabulous Dancers?"

"Very Fun Democracy?"

"Vain Flawless Designers?"

In case there's someone who hasn't guessed, the two Quagmire triplets were trying to figure out what V.F.D. stood for. It seemed almost impossible, as they couldn't come up with anything that made sense, or would fit a secret organisation.

"Voluntary Free Duty?"

"That doesn't even make sense."

Duncan sighed.

"I know," he let himself slide down onto his back in the cage.

They had been stuck in there for multiple hours, and Olaf hadn't even made an appearance since he left them in there. The triplets spent the whole time talking about the Baudelaires, the V.F.D. and their family. Two of these three subjects led to tears, mostly on Duncan's part. He had always been the most sensitive triplets. The smartest one too. Isadora was the creative triplet, Quigley was the charismatic one, and Duncan was the smart one. The poet, the cartographer and the journalist. One dead, and two kidnapped.

There were no windows in the secret shaft, seeing as it was underground, so the two triplets had no way to know what time it was. Duncan would have had a way, if his wristwatch had not been stolen by one of the white faced women. Right now it could be three in the morning, just as well as it could be seven in the evening. Last time Duncan saw his clock, it showed 9:42 am, and that seemed like an eternity ago.

Both Duncan and Isadora were exhausted. They needed some sleep. The only asleep moment they had gotten was those first couple of hours in the car. Before that they stayed up for hours and hours running laps, and since they they hadn't gotten any good sleep. And the cage's condition told them they couldn't expect it here either. They definitely spent more than a few minutes trying to find some sort of comfortable position.

"Ugh... this is worse than the broom closet _and_ the shack," Isadora complained as she got into the seventh sleeping position in two minutes.

"At least we had some kind of bed there."

"Yeah, and a toilet in the school. I'm about to burst," Isadora chuckled.

"Same! Olaf didn't think about that..."

"There were a lot of things he didn't think about," Isadora looked down at some torn down newspapers beside her. "Did he think we were going to use these for a toilet? Like animals?"

"Probably. We're _not_ doing that."

"Not a chance in the world. Just gonna have to hold it in until the Baudelaires rescue us."

Duncan nodded.

"We should probably get some sleep until then."

"Definitely. I'm gonna faint if I don't get some sleep soon."

After another few minutes of uncomfortably trying to find some place to sleep, the triplets managed to find an acceptably comfortable way. Isadora laid on her back with her legs bent, using her arm as a pillow, while Duncan used her stomach as a pillow, and rested his legs on the cage bars. It wasn't comfy in any way (except their "pillows"), caused by many factors.

Obviously, they were cramped in a small cage. Both of them needed to pee tremendously. The constant thought of their dead families, the secrets of V.F.D. and their friends haunted their minds.

In other words; It was really hard to fall asleep. But after a while, they managed to anyway. As they expected, it wasn't a good sleep. But at least they weren't exhausted anymore...

* * *

Isadora woke up, she didn't know how much later. She felt like she hadn't slept a minute though, so she decided to not even try to wake up. It would be to no good anyway. There was nothing she could do in there except think about Klaus, her family, and everything they got to know from the book. She could finger the pebbles on the ground, and be tortured by the fact that there was nothing she could do about Duncan crying.

She laid herself in a new semi-comfortable position, and started trying to fall asleep. Then she heard it. Sobbing and sniffing. She opened her eyes, and sat up. Duncan was sitting on the opposite side of the cage (not even a meter away) from her. His eyes looked completely worn out, red and irritated, and he had heavy black rings under them.

"Duncan, are you okay?"

Duncan looked up when he realized Isadora was awake.

"Yeah.. I'm fine."

Isadora sighed. She knew when her brother was lying.

"Then why do you look like you've been crying for hours?"

Duncan leaned his head back, letting another few tears fall down.

"'Cause I'm _not_ fine."

Isadora could feel her eyes watering just by the sight of her younger brother in tears. She moved closer, and gave him a quick hug.

"What's wrong?"

Duncan thought for a few seconds.

"We're in a cage. What do you expect?"

Isadora raised his eyebrows at him. He was lying. Again...

"I miss Violet. I can't help but feel we failed them."

"I already told you we haven't," tears were now rolling down Isadora's cheeks too. "But now we have to cheer you up."

Duncan smiled slightly just from that comment.

"Now tell me;" Isadora sat back. "Why do you like Violet?"

Duncan laughed to himself for a second.

"Well... She's kind, smart, creative, independent, sweet... _beautiful,_" he certainly wasn't crying anymore. Flurries of tears rested on his cheeks, but no new ones rolled from his eyes. "What do you like so much about Klaus?"

Isadora blushed.

"He's very smart, nice, cute, caring, just kind of... perfect."

For the next probably twenty minutes, they just sat there, talking about their respective loved ones. They got so engaged in the conversation that they didn't even notice what happened above them in the 46 story tall elevator shaft. At least not until the conversation faded out. The triplets continued sitting in relief and comfortable silence. That's when Duncan looked up, and spotted something.

It looked like a big basket, slowly floating down with the help of a large red and yellow handkerchief. Duncan stood up, and Isadora, curious to see what he was suddenly so interested by, followed. Slowly, the basket floated down, and landed in front of the cage. In the makeshift hot air balloon, stood the very people the Quagmires were most eager to see - the Baudelaires, all dressed in horrible pin stripe suits.

The triplets had never been so happy to see someone in their entire lives. This even beat that night when their parents had come home from multiple weeks of a work trip.

"You found us!" Duncan pressed himself against the cage bars, desperately wishing he could get out and hug Violet.

All five people in the shaft smiled at each other.

"I'm so happy to see you," Isadora said.

"I've never been so happy to see anyone in my life," Klaus replied.

"How did you find us?"

"It was Klaus' idea," Violet explained.

"It was Violet's invention," Klaus needed to give some credit to his sister.

After the incredibly happy reunion, they turned the situation's main point to rescuing the triplets.

"Do you think you could pick this lock?" Klaus asked.

"Not without any tools," Violet looked over the edge of the basket. "I wish I could see what's down here."

"Try this!" Isadora pulled out the half spyglass from her pocket.

She handed it to Violet, who put the pieces together.

"See the markings? If you line them up-"

"and give it a half turn counter-clock wise."

Violet followed the Quagmires' instructions, and watched in amazement as the device let out a light.

"We learned that in The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations," Isadora explained.

"You found the book?" Klaus' excitement was back.

"Right before we were kidnapped. We took as many notes as we could," Duncan took his commonplace book out, and smiled. "We may be kidnap victims, but I'm still a journalist."

"We've learned many haunting secrets."

"About our parents. And your parents too!"

"We were right. Everything is connected!"

"Well, what did you learn?" Klaus was interrupted by a noise coming from the top of the shaft.

"You can tell us when you're safe," Violet instructed.

"We heard Count Olaf's plan," Isadora told them. "He's going to hide us inside one of the items at the _In Auction_ so he can sneak us out of the city _tomorrow._"

Count Olaf had been very oblivious to the fact that the Quagmires were listening while he explained the plan to his troupe while walking through the secret tunnel.

"No he's not. You're coming with us, right now," Klaus said, sounding very determined.

He was _not_ about to lose Isadora again. Violet went on to explain something about the spyglass, and that it could be used to heat up, and melt the lock. She twisted the markings a little, and very well, the light turned to heat.

"The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations said the spyglass could be used for all sorts of things," Duncan explained, as he watched Violet bring the spyglass down to the lock.

She pointed the heat right at it, and the Quagmires took a step back; they were not risking getting burned. The lock certainly got warmer, and it started shaking. Violet suddenly pulled away.

"Did it melt?" Isadora asked hopefully.

She and Duncan stepped forward again. Klaus put his hand over the lock.

"No, it just got hotter."

"It's not gonna work. I can feel it overheating," Violet looked down at the spyglass.

She looked through the little room, but spotted nothing that could help.

"Can you hand me that newspaper?"

Without hesitation, Duncan reached down, picked up a torn down newspaper, and handed it to Violet. She proceeded to put it above the heating spyglass. The five of them in the shaft watched as the newspaper floated higher and higher.

"Heat rises," Violet commented.

"What?" Klaus got confused.

"We need to go back to that penthouse."

"You're leaving?" Duncan asked, devastated by the fact that his best friend, and love interest were leaving so quickly after arriving. He could feel the tears in his throat.

"We're gonna find something there to get you out."

The Baudelaires started putting together the hot air balloon again, and Violet turned the spyglass back to heat. Just before they were gonna start floating back up, Violet smiled at the two triplets.

"You saved us back at Prufrock Prep. We'd be in Olaf's clutches if it wasn't for you."

"So I'm sure you know," Klaus smiled too.

"What?"

"What friends are for."

The device started rising up, and the Baudelaires slowly floated away. Duncan and Isadora watched in both sadness and hope as their friends rose higher and higher. Everything seemed to go well, but after they were about three quarters of the way up, the Baudelaires voices started sounding distressed.

"What's happening?" Isadora asked, great worry held in her voice.

"I don't know," Duncan answered, just as anxious. "Nothing good, it looks like."

Not soon after, the hot air balloon started falling, at a fast rate. The Quagmires could hear Klaus screaming, and they felt like they were about to as well. They felt sick with fear, almost like they could throw up any second. Then relief filled them as they watched the device float normally again. They smiled as they watched their friends keep rising, knowing that soon they'd be free.

That was why the sudden explosion came as even more of a surprise. The whole balloon device went up in flames, and the sick feeling of agony returned as fast as it was gone. The burning basket fell down at a high speed, and crashed on the shaft floor, causing Isadora to flinch, and Duncan to take a step back from the bars. They looked straight back up, and felt so incredibly relieved to see the Baudelaire's climb into the penthouse safely. They no longer felt sick.

"They're safe," Duncan breathed. "We're gonna be okay."

"Yes," Isadora said happily. "We are.

Only a second later came bad news though. The door to the secret tunnel opened with a creak, and the white faces of two of Count Olaf's troupe members smiled at them.

"Time to prepare for the auction, twins," the two elder women said in unison.

For what felt like the millionth time in just one day, Duncan and Isadora's hearts sunk in realization that they were not going to be freed. They were going to be smuggled out of town. Right when their friends left. All hope felt lost.

The white faced women walked up to the cage, carrying a white throw. They threw the throw over the cage, and started dragging it out of the room. Duncan and Isadora guessed the throw was so they couldn't see where they were going, in case they would try to message the Baudelaires.

A while later, the women let them out of the cage, only to force them to climb up a ladder into an auction hall. The other troupe members were already waiting there, and together, they stuffed the triplets into a bright red herring statue. In there, the triplets were only centimeters away from each other. It was cramped, uncomfortable and hard to breathe. All they could do in the situation was _hope_ that the Baudelaires would come to the auction, and bid at the right thing...

* * *

**There was two chapters today, yay.**

**Reviews please, I'd love it.**

**In fact, I would love to read new reviews even when this story is like two years old. Right now, it's two weeks, so we've got a long way to go. But basically the message here is; I love reviews, and I want new ones even when this story is super old.**


	15. The Absurd Auction

Duncan struggled to breathe inside the big red herring. The hench people had poked a few air holes, but not enough for them to breathe normally. The air holes were only on Isadora's side too, making it even harder for Duncan to breathe. He guessed they didn't want it to look suspicious with holes in the statue for the auction, so they were only going to show one side.

Isadora had a hard time breathing too, even though the small holes were on her side. Her head was turned away from them. The triplets' faces were only centimeters away from each other, and most of their body parts were touching each other because of the small space.

Both of them were indescribably hungry. They hadn't gotten anything to eat since they got kidnapped over 24 hours ago, and so they were starving too. Although this didn't make any sense, since Olaf wanted their sapphires. He couldn't kill them. At least not both of them...

The red herring the triplets were stuffed in was constantly moved around by the hench people, who were arguing about pointless things. Duncan and Isadora were too busy breathing, and trying to find some comfortable place to lay in the statue to pay attention to the troupe. That was until one of them said;

"Grab that fin and pull."

A second later, the herring was pulled open by the bald man and person of indeterminate gender. Hooky was standing right in front of the salmon, staring down at them.

"We got an order from the boss that we should feed you before the auction."

A rush of excitement flew into the Quagmires.

"Yes!"

The troupe ignored Isadora's shout of happiness, and walked away to the end of the room. The triplets guessed that was where they kept the snack table. Unfortunately, none of the troupe members stayed to in some way help them out of the herring, which meant Duncan and Isadora somehow had to do it on their own.

"You can go first," Duncan said.

Isadora started wriggling her legs out of the statue, until she finally got foothold on the floor. She grabbed the edge of the herring, and pulled herself out. She turned around to grab Duncan's hand to help him out of it. Their whole bodies were cramping like crazy from being in the same position for so long.

The snack table wasn't huge, and there wasn't anything particularly thrilling on top of it, but it was enough to satisfy the Quagmires. They grabbed a few biscuits, cookies, an apple each, and a few glasses of water. Their throats were so dry, they felt like throwing up. They quickly drank the water first to clench their first. Although the water wasn't so satisfyingly cold, it still felt like the most delicious glass of water the triplets had even drunk, and they had almost never felt so happy to eat something as simple as biscuits and apples.

Everything was eaten in just a few minutes, and they already felt a _lot_ better. They felt stronger, better, and generally more comfortable. They even managed to start a relatively normal conversation with a few hench people about their lives before they made the horrible decision of joining Count Olaf (the triplets made sure to be specific about the fact that it was a bad decision). They found out that Hooky had a little sister who lived on a submarine, and the white faced women were actually triplets too, but their youngest sister died in a fire, just like Quigley...

That raised suspicion in the triplets. With all the things that they found out were connected, this sounded extremely weird. Could that fire also have something to do with the schism and all of the recent arson? They decided not to bring it up, and instead managed to convince the troupe to let them use the auction hall bathroom.

Then they were shoved inside the bright red herring statue again. They could feel the statue getting picked up, and placed on top of something, somewhere, but they had no way of knowing where in the auction hall they were now, and on top of what. They heard footsteps walking away from them, and a sound that sounded like someone opening a door or something. A minute later, the voices and footsteps from the hench people were gone. They had left the hall, and by doing so; left the Quagmires alone.

Either they were really stupid, or the herring was really escape proof.

"We have to try to escape," Isadora decided.

Duncan nodded as an answer.

"Push as hard as you can on your side," Isadora twisted around, and put her hands on her side of the herring.

Duncan did the same, and they started pushing as hard as they could. They tried for multiple minutes, to no success. The herring didn't open an inch, and they didn't move.

"It's not working," Duncan stopped.

Isadora sighed as she realized he was right.

"Then what do we do?" her eyes were watering.

"We...," Duncan started getting weak too. "We just...," a couple of tears ran down his cheeks. "...I don't know."

Isadora started crying as well.

"We...," she stopped to sob a little. "We hope that the Baudelaire's come here, and bid on this."

"And if they don't?"

"They will. I'm certain they will come here."

"What if they bid on the wrong item? You saw that box in the corner; It was marked V.F.D., and had air holes, what if they bid on that?"

Isadora let another few tears fall when she realized that could very well happen.

"We're done. It's over," Duncan said.

"It can't be. The Baudelaires _are _going to rescue us... one way or another. Everything is okay..."

"Isadora. If everything is okay, why are we locked in a cramped red herring statue, hardly breathing and crying?"

"Everything is not okay," Isadora admitted. "Nothing is okay. But... at least we're alive."

"We're alive, but far from okay."

Isadora nodded. Silence followed. They just laid there, crying and looking at each other.

"Klaus and Violet have probably found out we're gone by now," Isadora said.

"What'll they say? They left us alone, and now we're gone."

"It's not our fault, Duncan. We're kidnapped, we don't control anything anymore."

Duncan slowly nodded.

"All we can do is hope."

"And that's what we're doing."

It got quiet again.

Isadora started feeling tired, even though she had slept only a couple of hours ago. She didn't know for how long she had slept back then, but it surely wasn't long enough _or_ good enough. Sleeping here would be even worse, but she had to try to regain some energy at least.

Duncan watched as she fell asleep pretty quickly, but he wasn't tired. There was this one thing on his mind keeping him awake. The same thing as the last few weeks.

Violet Baudelaire.

He couldn't stop thinking about her. How amazing she was, and how much he wanted to spend his life with her. He was only thirteen, but he could feel something special. Something he never had with any of his previous crushes. He knew this wasn't just a crush though. He was _in love_. According to Isadora, Violet liked him too, but he still felt unsure. If she did, it would be unbelievable; his dream come true. He even had a page in his notebook where he had written her name, hearts, and certain initials added together. Sometimes he would even take it a little far, and start thinking about the changing of their surnames.

_Violet Quagmire? Duncan Baudelaire?_

There was a loose button on his Prufrock uniform. He suddenly saw an opportunity, and pulled it off. Then he went on to use the metal button to carve a few letters into the wall of the statue.

_**D.Q**_

_**V.B**_

He smiled at the carving. It felt good just looking at it. He spent several minutes just looking at the four letters, and thinking about Violet. With that on his mind, he fell asleep.

* * *

The triplets woke up later to the sound of several voices and footsteps. The auction had started. Both of them listened carefully to see if they could hear the Baudelaires, but they couldn't. After a while they heard a familiar voice though. It was Count Olaf, speaking in a horrible foreign accent. He was trying to sell a wanted poster of Count Olaf, who he called; "_Notorious good looking villain_".

No one wanted to buy it until he added a pack of gum to the sale. Then everyone wanted it. Olaf, dressed as the "handsome foreign man" Günther sold it to a lady, who seemed very eager to get the pack of gum.

They went on for a couple more pointless items, such as a plastic bag full of rutabagas, a pin stripe suit you could buy at the store, and the Squalor's own recipe for aqueous martinis. Then they suddenly felt movement. Someone was dragging the display the statue was laying on onto the stage. This was confirmed to be the white faced women when they heard their voices whisper into the herring.

"If you two make a noise-"

"-the boss said he will stab one of you with his cane-

"-which doubles as a javelin"

"This beautiful red herring fish will be a lovely addition to any home, or place of business, or how do you say, dentist office lobby," Günther explained as the Quagmires were rolled out onto the stage.

Esmé then explained something about the statue originally being a salmon, but they changed it when herring was "In". People started bidding, but the Quagmires couldn't even hear the Baudelaires' voices yet.

"I would like to bid on that item for the restaurant Herring Houdini... where I work," it was the bland voice of the hench person of indeterminate gender.

This could not happen! Everything that went around in the triplets' heads were that the Baudelaires needed to do something.

"Sold! To restaurant person for indeterminate amount of money which will be paid later."

"No... no, please no," Duncan whispered so quietly that only Isadora could hear.

"This can't be happening," Isadora whispered back.

The next item was a vase, which Günther sold to a man without even considering anyone else. He hadn't done that before, meaning he was interrupted, or had suddenly turned mad.

"We proceed as normal, please, with the crying of Lot 49."

A very familiar voice followed that.

"Lot 49, that's V.F.D."

It was Violet. Butterflies filled Duncan's stomach, and he turned his head towards the noise. When he looked back at Isadora though, his smile faded.

"Duncan, we're sold."

He had totally forgotten that in the moment. There was nothing the Baudelaires could do that would help. Plus, they had fallen for Count Olaf's trick. The V.F.D. box was just a red herring. A figurative one. The triplets were of course trapped in the literal red herring, unable to do something without risking one of their lives.

They listened in devastation as the Baudelaires stared bidding against the hench person of indeterminate gender. Not soon after, more and more people joined the bidding. Duncan and Isadora heard the voice of Larry, the waiter who worked in the school cafeteria, and another woman. The doors to the hall opened, and the school librarian, Olivia joined, together with another man.

It was completely heart wrenching listening to everyone bid over an item they thought the triplets were in, when they were really in the already sold red herring, crying.

The Baudelaires ended up winning the box when Sunny used her salary from being an administrative assistant to bid 1000 dollars. The Baudelaires ran up on stage, and started to rip open the box.

"Duncan!"

"Isadora!"

Words can't describe how desperately the Quagmire's wanted to shout "_Here!"_ from the herring. It was then revealed that the box contained Very Fancy Doilies. Right after, the news that Veblen Hall was out came, and everyone fled the room, leaving the Quagmires with Olaf's hench people once again...


	16. The Faux Fountain

Now that Olaf had been exposed once again, with the manhunt in mind, he couldn't risk being seen. Everyone knew he had the Quagmires kidnapped, and everyone was after him. So he escaped using the car. He forced his hench people to tie the red herring to the roof of the car, and now they were driving some place far away, but far from alone.

One of the worst parts of being kidnapped is not knowing where you're going. Duncan and Isadora were just stuck in a red herring statue on top of a moving car. Now that they weren't in the car anymore, they couldn't hear any of the troupe's plans anymore. They could just listen to the car moving, and their own breathing and crying. And of course, each other talking.

"_How _are the Baudelaires going to find us now? _We_ don't even know where we're going," Duncan asked, distressed.

"They found us at Dark Avenue."

"Yeah, because the Squalors were their guardians."

"We can hope they get guardians in... wherever we're going."

"What are the chances of that?"

"Small, but the chances were small that they would end up with the Squalors."

"No. They weren't. Count Olaf knew Esmé, it was all planned."

Isadora looked down, and nodded. Duncan was right. The chances were small for them to end up at the same place again.

"Can we please change positions, my leg is cramping," Isadora looked back up.

Duncan nodded, and they started switching.

"That's better," Isadora said when she found a way to bend her leg.

But then she spotted something. Something white on the red wall behind Duncan. She just spotted it barely though, before Duncan's hair got in the way.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"That thing on the wall," she pointed to it.

Duncan immediately started blushing, and he attempted to look down. He couldn't bend his head forward, as he would hit Isadora if he did that.

"It's nothing."

Isadora gaped, and smiled at him.

"Ooooh, it's so something! Show me!"

Duncan shook his head, nervously smiling.

"Duncan. We don't know how long we'll be in here, so I'm gonna see it later anyway."

Isadora excitedly watched as Duncan tilted his head, so she could see the carving.

_**D.Q**_

_**V.B**_

"Awwww, Duncan!"

Duncan's face got even more red.

"That is the cutest thing!"

Isadora looked at the little carving. Duncan _really_ liked Violet... And she really liked Klaus. Just from thinking about him, she felt happy, but also sad at the moment, because because she was unsure if he would find them.

"How did you write that?"

Duncan held up his open uniform jacket.

"A button was loose."

"Where's that button now?"

Isadora was kind of thinking about carving something herself.

"I dropped it," Duncan pointed to the bottom of the herring.

There went Isadora's plan.

"Wait," Duncan put his hands on the walls around him. "We're slowing down."

The car stopped, and the triplets could hear Count Olaf, the troupe, and the new addition; Esmé, getting out. Olaf and Esmé's constantly talking voices got more distant, meaning they walked away, while the hench people were left to take care of the red herring.

"Who's carrying the herring?" they could hear Hooky ask.

None of the other hench people volunteered, and so they decided to just go and leave their luggage, and leave the Quagmires alone.

"Where are we?" Isadora turned her head, to see if she could spot anything of meaning through the tiny air holes.

All she saw was dry ground going on for miles.

"I have no idea," Duncan answered.

"It looks like we're back out in the hinterlands."

"Are we at Prufrock?"

"I can't see any buildings, but we could be facing away from them."

"Yeah. I don't think Count Olaf would just park his car and walk away without hiding."

"We're in the middle of nowhere. We've been-"

Suddenly Duncan hushed Isadora.

"The voices are coming back," he whispered.

The hench people were back, now to get the herring. They started pulling and pushing it back and forth between them; they were on different sides of the car, fighting about in which direction they were taking them down. All the sudden, quick, and shaking movements caused the two triplets to almost feel a little nauseous.

"Why don't you just take it down the front?" they could hear a dull voice asking.

Everyone was silent for a second, before sliding the herring down. It seemed both Hooky and the bald man had let go of the statue, because a second later, it hit the ground. This lead to the triplets hitting their heads on the inside of the statue. Their hands flew up to their hurt heads as the hench people picked the statue up, and started carrying them towards... somewhere.

Duncan was already feeling nauseous from them shaking the herring, and sad for losing his friends _again_, and now his head hurt like crazy. He started crying.

"Duncan," Isadora whispered, so quiet only Duncan would hear. "Don't cry, we have to stay strong. Then they'll understand to not mess with us."

"I wish I could listen to what you're saying," Duncan quietly sobbed.

They seemed to reach their destination, because the hench people put them down. It was warmer wherever they were now, so the triplets assumed they were inside. For a while, the troupe talked a little about "important things".

"But if the Snickets followed us, we'll need to stash them somewhere... less conspicuous," the triplets heard Olaf say.

"Less conspicuous than a bright red statue of a fish?" Hooky asked.

Well, obviously... Anyone could see this statue from a mile away.

"I know just the place," Olaf smirked.

Duncan and Isadora could hear the villainy in his voice, and got immediately worried. The troupe started fuzzing about costumes, and the meeting in the town hall. They were apparently going there. Well, everyone except Count Olaf. He was going to hide them. A while later, the hench people had their costumes, and were getting ready to go.

"You have to go. The meeting is starting!" Count Olaf was looking out the gate to the saloon they were hiding in.

"Darling, don't be so ridiculous. Being late is _in._"

"Yeah, much like stuffing orphans in fountains," Olaf replied, smirking to himself.

_Fountain_? Was he seriously going to hide them in a _fountain_?

"Now, hurry off you!" Olaf shooed the hench people away.

"Why do we have to go?" Hooky whined. "I mean they're just welcoming the Baudelaires-"

"SCCCCHHH!" Olaf put his hand over Hooky's mouth. "Don't say that, they might get... _ideas._"

It was already too late. The Quagmires heard, ideas were put in their heads, and they let out a relieved breath of happiness. The Baudelaires _were_ there. They whispered out their feelings to each other, while the hench people left for the town hall. As fast as they were gone, Olaf went over to the herring, and pulled it open.

"Get out of there, we're moving you now."

Duncan and Isadora got out as fast as they could, and Olaf grabbed their uniforms immediately. They were in a town. A town in the middle of the hinterlands. It only had a few small houses and a big town hall. In the middle stood a big fountain, representing a crow.

"The town of V.F.D., I haven't been here in years," Olaf muttered as he dragged the Quagmires to the fountains.

"V.F.D." Isadora whispered to Duncan. They had both comprehended what Olaf said, but Isadora's saying of the words was just to make sure they were on the same page.

Olaf pushed Isadora into Duncan, so he could hold both of them in one hand, as he pressed down the beak on the fountain.

"Same rules as before. Make a single noise while people can hear you, and one of you will be _eliminated._"

Duncan and Isadora just nodded. They couldn't risk losing another sibling. Just the thought of losing Isadora made Duncan's eyes water even more than they already were. The fountain opened, revealing a secret hiding place. it was tiny, but at least it was bigger than the statue.

"Get in there, Brat-mire and Quag-cryer."

Olaf shoved in Isadora to the back of the secret place, and Duncan right in front of her.

"See you when we've got the Baudelaires as well," Olaf chuckled to himself as he pushed the crow beak back up, closing the fountain.

The second they were closed in darkness, Duncan broke down. He let himself glide down the wall, and sat down. The fountain was far bigger than the red herring statue. They even had a little space to move, and they could sit down. This time, he didn't have a new reason to cry. All the reasons he had cried in the last couple of days caught up with him, and he couldn't help but sob his heart out. Isadora felt like crying too, but she knew how to keep herself up. She had done it multiple times before. As the big sister of the triplets, she wanted to be strong, in front of her brothers. She was strong.

"Duncan. We need to get out of here," she sat down beside him.

"How?"

"We'll... send a message or something to the Baudelaires."

"And how are we supposed to do that? We're trapped in a fountain Isadora!"

Isadora thought for a moment. Then it clicked, and she pulled out her notebook from Prufrock.

"We'll write our location on a page here."

She quickly wrote down a quick few words.

_We're in the fowl fountain. Help._

She could barely see what she was doing in the dark, but a little light made it through a creak above her.

"We'll get this to the Baudelaires," she ripped the page out from the book, and let Duncan see it.

"What if someone else sees it first? What if Count Olaf finds it, and finds out we're sending them messages. Then..."

He stopped talking before finishing the sentence. He looked at Isadora, thinking about what may happen if Olaf were to find that page. Isadora bit her lip. She hadn't thought about that possibility. This was hopeless. In slight rage she threw the page onto the fountain floor. Then another idea popped into her head.

"But what if we don't say it directly."

Duncan gave her a confused look in the midst of his crying.

"What do you mean?" he sobbed.

"What if we give them a coded message? They told us they've cracked codes before, maybe they can do it again."

To Isadora's happiness, Duncan smiled.

"That would work. What kind of code should we write?"

"We.. we can write our location vertically, and some other sentences along them horizontally. What about couplets?"

"Sounds good."

Isadora ripped out a page from her notebook, and started writing.

"Should we really do it all in one? If this gets lost, we have no hope," Duncan objected. "Write four notes, one couplet on each one."

Isadora nodded, and ripped the page into four different slips. Then she started thinking, and writing. She started with writing the vertical letters, spelling _FOUNTAIN_. Then she continued on from there.

_For sapphires are held in here.  
Only you can end our fear._

_Until dawn comes we cannot speak.  
No words can come from this sad beak._

_The first thing you read contains the clue:  
An initial way to speak to you._

_Inside these letters the eye will see  
Nearby are your friends, and V.F.D._

"Duncan?" she held them up to the strim of light, so he could read them.

Duncan smiled as to show his approval. In the moment, he didn't feel like speaking. Sadness was trapped in his throat, and tears were still rolling down his face.

"How do we get them out?" Isadora asked.

Duncan started thinking. They hit a roadblock. They had the perfect message but couldn't deliver it. Crows cawing was heard in the distance, and soon they were right on top of the fountain. One even sat on the beak, causing it to open a little; letting in some sunlight, and a bright idea.

"I got it!"

Duncan looked at Isadora with curiosity. She in turn was looking around for something to use. Then she stopped, and rubbed the paper against Duncan's wet undereye area.

"Wrap this around the crow's leg," she handed Duncan the damp poem.

"Good idea, Izzie," he smiled as he stood up, and carefully wrapped the little piece of paper around the crow on the beak's leg.

It immediately jumped down from the fountain.

"Finally something good comes from you crying," she smiled as she sat back down.

"Shut up," Duncan chuckled.

Isadora sighed.

"Now we just have to hope the Baudelaires find them."

"They will," Duncan smiled at her. "Trust me."

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**Please review peeps! Ya know there's nothing better than a good ol' review!**


	17. The Successful Save

**Warning: This chapter may be longer than the previous ones, due to _a lot _happening**

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The Quagmires spent the next couple of days in the fountain. They spent their time talking about anything and everything (mainly the V.F.D. and their friends). Of course, a lot of tears fell (mainly from Duncan), but they also laughed. They managed to smuggle out the rest of the poetry slips out, using damp from the morning dew for the last three couplets.

They were only let out of the fountain for ten minutes at night, under close watch of the hench people. The only thing they had time to do was eat and use the bathroom. Then they were stuffed right back in the fountain for the next 23 hours and 50 minutes.

Until one faithful day...

It was the third day of being stuck in the fountain. The one sun ray reaching into the fountain revealed it was the middle of the day. The triplets had slept through the entire night; except for when they were let out.

"The Baudelaires should have found us by now," Duncan whispered.

"We don't know what's going on with them. They may be in horrible trouble."

They were currently standing in the fountain, waiting to be rescued. Even though they weren't sure it would happen today. Or ever...

Since the town was filled with people at the time, they had to whisper, to avoid one of them being killed. But then it happened. A town hall meeting. Everyone left the town square, and it turned quiet.

"Finally, we don't have to whisper anymore," Isadora sighed, relieved.

"Even though it's not much effort, whispering is exhausting," Duncan took a deep breath.

"True. If we have to be stuck like this for much-"

Duncan hushed her.

"Footsteps," he was whispering again.

Very well, there were footsteps in the distance. Footsteps and voices. They couldn't make out any words, or if they recognized the voice; the fountain closed out too much noise.

"Quiet" Isadora commanded, and both of them shut their mouths.

They listened as the persons outside the fountain got unusually close. Could it be the Baudelaires? Duncan and Isadora smiled just by the thought of getting rescued. Suddenly, more light than the hole appeared. Someone was pulling the beak. It stopped halfway, along with the sound of someone falling. Slowly, the beak opened fully, activating the opening. The head slowly shot back, and the crow's chest opened. For the first time in 48 hours, they saw true sunlight, and not just a slight ray. The two triplets looked around, but saw nothing.

"Duncan!"

"Isadora!"

They looked down. On the ground lay the three people they had been so extremely eager to see. Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. They stood up, while the Quagmires climbed out of the fountain. For the few following minutes, the Quagmires' gut feeling that they would never see the Baudelaires again was gone.

"You found the poems!" Isadora said, incredibly happy the codes worked.

"Are you okay?" Violet asked.

The two unofficial couples threw themselves into each others arms, and embraced the hugs. They never wanted to let go.

"Much better now," Duncan answered.

"How did you get here?" Klaus had the widest smile ever on his face.

"Count Olaf smuggled us out of the auction inside of a red herring," Isadora explained.

Violet grinned.

"We found it in the saloon, that's how we knew you guys were close."

Duncan's face went blank, as he felt his heart figuratively stop. He knew what was in that red herring. He wanted Violet to have found it, but also kind of hoped she hadn't, in fear that she would reject him.

"You didn't happen to see anything written inside?" he was blushing profusely, and slightly shaking his head, in hope Violet hadn't seen the carving.

"We didn't have time to examine it closely," Violet answered.

She knew she was lying, but this wasn't the time for secret love confessions. Duncan looked down, both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

"But why were you in there?" Klaus pointed to the fowl fountain.

"Olaf hid us in the fountain so we'd be out of his way," Isadora was quick to answer

"It was Isadora's idea to use the couplets as a code."

"And Duncan figured out how to smuggle them out," Isadora couldn't take all the credit.

Duncan quickly explained how they did it; without mentioning that they used his tears for moisture once.

"The paper dried overnight and fell from the tree," Klaus finished the explanation, and Duncan happily nodded. "But how did you know we were here?"

"One of Count Olaf's hench people accidentally mentioned it, and we knew you guys would find us."

"It's what friends are for," Duncan added, smiling at Violet.

"Mob!" Sunny suddenly shouted.

The older four in the group turned their heads, and saw the massive mob, led by Detective Dupin and Officer Luciana.

"This way," Klaus ran in between two houses, and led the group to a hiding place behind them.

"Where can we go?" Duncan asked, panicked.

"This village is in the middle of nowhere!" Isadora added.

"We know a way out."

"It's a self sustaining hot air mobile home. If we make it to the town boarder we can escape."

"We'll be safe forever, up in the air."

The Baudelaires were quick to explain.

"Forever?" Duncan asked.

"But then we'll never learn about V.F.D."

"The real V.F.D. Not this vile village," Duncan gestured to the town square.

"Jacques Snicket said he was a part of it. That's why him and Olaf have the same tattoo," Violet explained.

"The firehouse was one of their headquarters," Duncan suddenly remembered all their notes. "We wrote everything we learned in our commonplace books."

A flash from a camera interrupted him, and they noticed Eleanora Poe standing there. Rage filled Duncan as he saw one of the persons he hated the most. But this was no time for fights - they had to run. And they did. They ran to the corner of a shop, where they stopped. Olaf immediately convinced the town that the Quagmires were the Baudelaires' _accomplices of murder_.

"Accomplices?" Duncan asked.

"Long story. We'll explain later," Violet quickly answered. "We need a distraction."

Sunny picked up a carrot, and handed it to Violet. Violet in turn, threw the carrot, and the whole town watched as their donkey ran after it. This was the friend group's moment to run into a new hiding place. This time behind a fence, by the firetruck.

"We're out of places to hide," Duncan pointed out.

A motorcycle pulled up to the square, and Larry, your waiter, and Jacquelyn stepped off it. The Baudelaires and Quagmires watched in awe as the two of them held a quick speech in front of the town, ending with Jacquelyn asking;

"Look in your hearts and ask yourselves '_what do you really want_?'"

Both the friend group and the two new arrivals watched in anticipation as the town thought. They were of course expecting an incredible realization, but elder Jemma burst their bubble.

"To burn children."

No! Dupin and Luciana led the crowd right towards the fence they were hiding behind.

"They're coming! How far is your friends self sustaining hot air mobile home?" Isadora asked.

She then noticed Violet was looking up, at the sky.

"It's not how far, it's how high."

Everyone looked up, and there it was, in the sky. The mobile home, held up by several green balloons.

"You're out of buildings to hide behind, orphans," Olaf was right outside the fence.

Suddenly, the firetruck started driving right against the fence. The four of them froze for a moment, before hastily jumping onto it. When they looked into the driver's seat, they could see none other than _Sunny_ driving.

"Your sister drives?" Duncan asked, confused by the sight.

"Apparently."

Sunny drove the truck out of the town, and all the way to the mobile home.

"Sunny, keep your eye on that balloon," Violet instructed.

"And the road."

They reached Hector, and Sunny stopped.

"Hector!" Violet yelled.

"Baudelaires! I'm so glad you made it!" a tan colored man in a cowboy hat and overalls looked over the edge.

"I hope you don't mind a few extra passengers."

Hector didn't mind, and explained how it took several people to keep the mobile home running. He then released a rope ladder. The fact that they had to climb up that made the Quagmires uncomfortable. It looked rickety and unstable, but it was the only way to safety. Klaus pressed a few buttons on the firetruck, and successfully rose up the ladder. The two ladders met up with only a few inches between them.

"You first," Violet commanded.

"We'll be right behind you."

Isadora took the lead, and began climbing up the much more stable firetruck ladder. Close after her Duncan followed. The higher they climbed, the closer the mob got. Olaf instructed the mob to climb up the firetruck, and drag the orphans down. Way too much adrenaline than necessary spread through the Quagmires bodies. They were shaking so much they could barely climb anymore. Violet pulled out the water hose, and used it as a threat to make sure the mob wouldn't get closer. Klaus then drew a long, complicated, unbelievably truthful-sounding explanation. By now, Isadora had reached the gap between the ladders, and was desperately trying to grab the rope ladder. She was completely terrified, as if she fell, this could be the end of her life.

"Out of my way! Move it!" it was Esmé, or officer Luciana; with a harpoon gun...

She loaded the gun with a harpoon, and began aiming. Isadora managed to grab the ladder, after a little slip up. When she let go with her other hand to grab it, she got severe flashbacks to when they escaped the fire, and so did Duncan. They remembered every second of that.

Shaking excessively, she took the first step onto the ladder, which was swinging all over the place. She had almost never been so scared. But that would change in just a few seconds, when Luciana fired the first harpoon. It hit one of the balloons, causing the whole home device to lower. This in turn caused the ladder to swing out of control.

"Isadora!" Duncan shouted in panic as Isadora almost lost grip.

She manged to get hold of the ladder again though, and went back on track. Her life almost flashed before her eyes, and her breathing turned heavy.

Duncan swallowed his spit at least ten times when it was his turn to go onto the rope ladder. He grabbed it, and repeated Isadora's action.

Luciana fired another harpoon, and in a second, red liquid was flowing down from the hot air mobile home. Everyone gasped at the sight, and Duncan almost threw up when he turned around and saw it pouring onto the ground.

"It's okay!" Hector's voice said, meaning he was alright. "It's just my supply of cranberry juice!"

Isadora finally reached the safe area on the mobile home, and sat down by the edge, shivering. As she looked down, she could see her younger brother getting closer to the top, and Klaus starting to climb. She also noticed Luciana struggling with the harpoon gun, and hoped with all she had that she wouldn't fix it in time to fire while Duncan was climbing. To her relief, she didn't, and Duncan got onto the mobile home safely, just a little shaken up. He too, turned and looked down, just in time to see Luciana fire another harpoon at a balloon. As the home lowered again, Duncan and Isadora grabbed onto the closest things so hard their fists hurt.

"Hurry, Baudelaires, the mobile home can't take any more damage!" Hector shouted.

The Baudelaires exchanged a few stressed words. Klaus turned his head up.

"Hatch your head higher!"

"But how will you reach us!?" Hector asked.

"We won't!"

Devastated and shocked, the Quagmires looked at each other. They could feel themselves swallowing and holding back the tears as they rose higher. Klaus and Violet started climbing down. This could not be happening.

"Baudelaires! No! What are you doing!?" Duncan asked in a distressed panic.

He couldn't lose Violet again.

"What friends are for!" his love replied.

Then Luciana fired another harpoon. It hit one of the balloons again, and the hot air mobile home trembled heavily.

"Stop! Stop shooting at them!" Klaus demanded.

"With your _mechanical device_."

The council of elders immediately stepped in in front of Luciana, and started yelling at her for breaking the rules. Then the crows came. A huge murder of crows surrounded the self sustaining hot air mobile home. Luciana ignored the council, and prepared to shoot another harpoon.

"If we don't see each other again this is all the information about the real V.F.D." Isadora shouted.

"Everything you need to know is in these commonplace books," Duncan held up his book, and so did Isadora. "About Count Olaf's plan."

"About Jacques Snicket and his associates."

"You helped us Baudelaires. I hope we can help you," Duncan held in his sobs and cries for another few moments, as he and Isadora let go of their precious notes.

In the almost certain future scenario in front of them, they would never see the Baudelaires again. This completely crushed them, but as a last action towards the best people they ever met, the triplets wanted to help.

Right as the commonplace books started falling, Luciana fired the last harpoon. From there, everything felt like it went in slow motion. The harpoon flew up, and right as the notebooks were right above each other, it hit them. All the pages went loose, and flew all over the place. They fell down, and so did one of the V.F.D. crows. Everything was in scraps; all their notes and research. The Baudelaires managed to catch a few pages, but all of them had holes in the middle.

The Quagmires watched in agony. There was nothing they could have done to change the event that had just happened. Everything felt lost.

"Goodbye," Isadora said, seriously struggling not to cry her eyes out.

"Goodbye," Duncan wasn't trying anymore, and gleaming tears were rolling down his face.

"Goodbye," Violet's eyes were glistening with tears,

"Goodbye Quagmires," so were Klaus'.

"Bye," Sunny was the strongest in the situation, although her not crying could have been because she didn't fully understand the situation.

The Quagmires watched the Baudelaires until they were just little dots on the ground. If they could, the Quagmires would look over the edge forever, just to make sure they never had to stop seeing their loved ones. The moment felt all too short just as much as it lasted forever. Soon it had to stop though, as the Baudelaires had a criminal to flee from.

The triplets were smiling but crying when then finally pulled the ladder up. They knew they might never see the Baudelaires again, which was the most devastating fact they had ever come upon. It was just as bad as never seeing their parents or brother again. It caused them to just want to cry, cry and cry for hours upon hours upon hours. But they were also happy, because they were safe. No one could ever treat them wrong up here. But no one except Hector and themselves could ever treat them right either. They were free, but they were also trapped. It felt good, but bad at the same time. Everything was just up in the air; their feelings, their emotions, and themselves.

As soon as the fence was put back in place where the ladder had hung, the Quagmires threw their arms around each other. They hugged and cried for a long time after that.

It could have been the last time they saw the Baudelaire's...

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**Three chapters in one day, woohoo!**

**Slightly longer chapter than what I usually upload, but _heck_ I loved writing it! I both laughed and cried while writing this.**

**I always crack up when Jemma says; "_To burn children_", and this was no exception. But I also cry _every single time_ I watch the Quagmires and Baudelaires separate, and I cried even more writing this. All the emotions they must have had just got to me while I wrote it, and I got chills, cried, and for a while I was shaking like crazy, imagining myself climbing up that ladder.**

**Well, anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, although the story is not over. We have one more chapter to go... (then I will start a whole new story).**

**Write your opinions on this chapter in a review. That is an order. If you chose not to, you'll be completely fine in your world, but you will go to Review Prison in my mind.**


	18. The Euphoric End

The Quagmires had been on the mobile home for four months. _Four... months_... up in the air, with only each other and Hector. Some parts were amazing! They had seen unbelievable things as they floated through the air above the country. Rain was horrible when it happened twice or thrice in a month, so they were really happy it was mostly sunny.

One of the absolute best things about the mobile home was that they had _beds_. Actual beds with space, pillows and nice warm blankets. On that first night of sleeping on there, the triplets could have sworn it was the best they had ever slept. They also had some good food too. The last meal they ate that was this good was Lorelei's soup. At Prufrock, everything was distasteful, and the only thing they were given from Count Olaf's troupe were cheap snacks and fruit.

They didn't know where Count Olaf, Esmé, or the hench people were now; but the thing they did know was that they'd never bother the triplets again. They were safe and alive on the self sustaining hot air mobile home, floating high above all the villainy in the world.

Both the Quagmire's could go on for days about all the great things about the mobile home, but as anything in life; it had it's flaws.

Although the food was good, and they had plenty of it, they didn't have a great variety. But they didn't complain; at least they had food. At a young age they had been taught to appreciate what they had, even if it was little. And so that applied to the clothes too. They of course had their Prufrock uniforms, that they aboard in. Hector had also packed some of the Baudelaires' clothes. It was originally planned that they were going off with him, and so he took their clothes onboard. The triplets only had a few pairs of clothes each, but it was more than enough; even though the clothes were a little too big at the start.

But there was one thing that bothered them the most, that was the worst thing about being on the mobile home:

They didn't have the Baudelaires with them, and they knew they might never see them again. This devastated them at a level they had never known before. Duncan was deeply in love with Violet, and Isadora was with Klaus. Now the moment that could be the last time they ever saw their friends had passed. Neither one of the triplets were afraid to admit how much they missed them, and that they even cried over it still.

Hector missed the Baudelaires too, but not nearly as much as the Quagmires. During the two days they had been with him, they showed him their extreme wisdom and kindness, in a way that no one in the Village of Fowl Devotees ever had, and he missed that. For the Quagmires, it was way more complicated than that. The Baudelaires were the only ones who truly understood their situation, and the only ones who helped them through their time at Prufrock (except for Olivia Caliban of course).

"You got any aces?" Duncan asked.

"Go fish," Isadora smirked evilly.

Duncan pulled a seven from the pile of cards on their shared bedside table. The two triplets were sitting in their small, but comfy bedroom in one of the baskets of the mobile home. It didn't look like a basket at all though. It looked more like the tiny bedrooms you can find on some cruises, where there's just a couple of bunk beds, and a bedside table in the middle. Hector had really had everything in mind when he built this, as he even added an extra bedroom in case of other people coming aboard. He had his bedroom in one of the other baskets.

The mobile home was built up from twelve baskets tied together, with a deck above them, and several trap doors, leading down to the rooms. Above the living area were several green balloons, holding it up. Running all of this was an extremely strong engine, which could hold the device running for more than a century, meaning a person who went up never had to come down. They _could_ land the mobile home, but Hector was unsure if they would be able to launch again if they did. Therefore, he didn't want to land. For that reason also, they were very careful with ratiocinating the food.

"Any sevens?" Isadora asked, hopeful, seeing as she only needed one more seven to the whole book.

"_Just_ got one," Duncan unwillingly handed his sister the card he just picked up from the sea of cards.

"Hahaha!" Isadora let out a jokingly evil laugh as she put the book of sevens beside her on the bed.

They had been playing go fish for the last half hour, and were currently on their third round. Isadora had won both of the previous two, and was in the lead with three books to one. Some would see it as a childish game, but playing cards was one of the few things they could do to make time pass. But of course; they didn't complain about that either.

"Do you have any-" Duncan started asking, before;

"Quagmire's! Come up here!"

Duncan and Isadora looked at each other for a second, before dropping their cards, and climbing up on board. Hector's tone of voice revealed to them that this was a serious matter, and they _really _had to be up there.

When Duncan reached the top first, he saw Hector looking over the edge. He could also see they were over a sea, just about a kilometer offshore.

"What, Hector?" Duncan's heart started racing in his chest.

"There's something sending us a help signal... I think it's a submarine," Hector answered, squinting his eyes to focus better on the big black object on the water surface.

"A _submarine_?" Isadora climbed on top of the deck, and closed the trap door.

Hector nodded.

"Can one of you please get me the flashlight and binoculars?"

Duncan nodded, and ran over to Hector's toolbox. He took out what Hector asked for, and ran over to him. While over there, he took the opportunity to look a what the fuzz was about. Much true to Hector's word, something resembling a weirdly shaped submarine was resting on the surface, with a blinking red light. When Duncan squinted, he saw that a person was standing _on top_ of the submarine.

Hector used the flashlight to send a signal that they could help with whatever the submarine wanted. A mechanical tentacle, fitting the submarine emerged from the water, and gently picked up the person. The tentacle slowly started rising. Hector handed his flashlight to Isadora and took the binoculars from Duncan. He looked down at the person through the binoculars. A second later, he lowered the binoculars in shock.

"It can't be," he put them back, just to lower them again. "It's impossible."

He glanced over at the triplets over his shoulder.

"What?" Isadora asked.

Duncan took the binoculars as they were handed to him, and looked down at the person in the tentacle. Unfortunately, the person was looking down at the submarine at the moment, and all Duncan could see was a head of brown hairs.

Meanwhile Hector was pacing, contemplating what he just saw, giving Duncan constant glances.

"Let me see," out of curiosity, Isadora took the binoculars out of Duncan's hands, and looked down at the tentacle herself.

Right when she found the person through the zoomed in vision, he turned his head back up to them. A very familiar face looked back at her, with a smile from ear to ear.

"Oh my gosh!" Isadora put her hand on her mouth, before dropping down on her knees, crying out a flood of happy tears. She covered her face with her hands to stop herself from crying out all the tears in her body.

Duncan picked up the binoculars from where Isadora dropped them, and went to look. What he saw nearly made him drop the binoculars into the water below, and it certainly made him start crying just as much as Isadora.

"QUIGLEY!" his direct instinct was to let him onboard, so he followed it and slid the fence to the side.

Isadora got up and pushed the rope ladder down. It was just long enough to meet up with the submarine's tentacle, and the middle triplet grabbed onto it. When he had a good hold of it, the tentacle let go of him, and he got foothold on the ladder. Duncan and Isadora sat down on their knees by the gap in the fence, and watched, crying from happiness as Quigley climbed up to them.

The second he got up he almost _attacked_ his older sister and younger brother with hugs. The three of them cried and hugged each other for full on minutes, while Hector watched them with tears in his eyes as well.

A couple of minutes later, the three triplets let go of each other and for a while just sat there, looking at each other, smiling, laughing and crying from happiness. Isadora broke the happy moment of silence.

"How did you survive?"

"Mother shoved me in a secret tunnel under our house," Quigley explained. His voice sounded as if all his dreams came true at once.

Isadora and Duncan gave each other a quick happy look.

"When we were kidnapped, Count Olaf transported us around in there," Duncan said.

"Oh yeah, I read about that in the Daily Punctilio," Quigley said.

Duncan looked away in disgust for a second.

"Don't worry, I didn't trust everything. When they can't even remember the kidnapper's name you kind of lose a lot of trust," Quigley said, to get Duncan's attention back.

"How did you find us?" Isadora asked, changing the subject.

"It was easy," Quigley snorted. "I was just studying tidal charts to track the Baudelaires location, and I got a lead on this mobile home."

"You met the Baudelaires?" Duncan asked. "Where are they now? Are they okay?"

"Easy, little brother," Quigley laughed. "Yes, I met them; on Mount Fraught."

"And are they okay? Where are they?" Isadora repeated Duncan's question.

Quigley turned quiet, and looked down at the floor. When he looked back up he was biting his lip.

"They haven't been seen for over three months."

Isadora and Duncan's hearts sunk.

"Three months?" Duncan asked, completely defeated.

"I'm sorry," Quigley whispered.

"It's not your fault, Quigley," Isadora reassured.

Quigley nodded.

"Count Olaf hasn't been seen either. And neither has Kit."

"_Kit_?" Isadora asked.

"Kit Snicket. Jacques' sister."

"You know about Jacques?" Duncan looked back up. "Do you know about the V.F.D.?"

Quigley nodded, excitedly.

"I partly joined before going off to find you."

"You know what it stands for?" Isadora asked.

"Volunteer Fire Department. They dedicated themselves to putting out literal and figurative fires in the world."

The youngest and oldest triplet let out relived sighs.

"Did you come across any book called _The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations_?" Duncan asked.

Quigley chuckled.

"I read the whole thing."

"We've been desperate to find it ever since we met the Baudelaires."

Quigley smiled.

"They told me they helped you escape Count Olaf."

"They did! We'd either be dead, kidnapped or still at Prufrock if it wasn't for them," Isadora explained.

"When did you meet them?" Duncan asked.

"About four months ago. They ran into the cave of snow scouts I was staying with," Quigley made a disgusted face for a second. "There was this really awful girl named Carmelita Spats there."

"Ugh, Carmelita!" Duncan groaned.

"Trust us, we know all about her."

"And the Baudelaires," Quigley added, smirking. "They told me about you. They _really_ like you, you know."

Isadora and Duncan blushed.

"How do you know?" Duncan asked, shyly.

"What do you think? Klaus was constantly going on like crazy about you Isadora, and Violet told me that she realized she liked you, Duncan, right after... we _kissed,_" Quigley explained, hesitating for a bit on telling Duncan about the kiss.

Duncan gaped at him.

"You didn't!"

"Don't get mad! I don't like her anymore," Quigley put his hands in front of himself as protection.

"_Anymore_?" Isadora asked, once again changing the subject; things could get touchy between her brothers when it came to girls.

Quigley nodded.

"Yeah... I met this girl on the submarine I was just on; Fiona. And she's just wonderful."

Isadora smiled, and when she glanced at Duncan she could see a slight smirk on his face too.

"So have you just been making out with a girl on a submarine for the last four months?"

Quigley was extremely quick to shake his head.

"No, no, no. I was looking for you too."

"_Too_?" Isadora asked, smirking.

Quigley looked down, hiding his whole face blushing.

"So if you liked her _so much_, why did you leave, and come here?" Duncan asked.

"Because I'd rather be with you," Quigley looked back up, and saw his siblings' eyes watering again.

Then they hugged again, for even longer than before.

"I'm so glad you're alive," Isadora whispered as she hugged her brothers tighter.

"And I'm so glad you're okay."

The siblings were constantly hugging each other, and crying from happiness for the rest of that day. Quigley got properly moved in on the mobile home, and they finally felt almost completed. Quigley told them his whole story, and the Quagmires their respective one. The whole time Hector just watched them, feeling extremely happy the triplets were finally three again.

The four of them on the mobile home went on to live there for a long time. Happy, relived, and most important of all: _together_.

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**That was the end of _The Other Series of Unfortunate Events!_**

**What did you think? Was the story line good? Was the ending good? Were you fully satisfied? Or do you want more?**

**If you want me to write anything specific, write your suggestion in a review, as my PM's aren't working. Whatever you suggest, I will write! (except if I find the concept inappropriate, or if it goes against any of my beliefs on the series).**

**See you either later today, or tomorrow, with a new story!**


	19. Let's Talk

**Hello all of you people who read this ASOUE story! Welcome to Let's Talk. Now you might wonder; ****_What the hell is let's talk?  
_****Let me answer that question. **

**It's this thing I've done with all my NRDD stories, and I thought, why not do it here too?**

**I'll basically just explain a lot of things. I'm gonna talk about the inspiration behind the story, some of the events during it, and lastly, I'm gonna talk about the smaller things that happened during each chapter. **

**So, enjoy!**

* * *

The Idea Behind _The Other Series of Unfortunate Events_

Duncan and Isadora are basically my two favorite characters, and I don't think we got close to enough of them. I wanted to look more into their story, and what happened to them during all of this; what they felt and thought. We mostly saw how they felt for the Baudelaires, and their compassion for their story.

But in my opinion, losing your parents, and thinking you've lost your brother doesn't sound that good either. And for that to be followed up by being placed at Prufrock, only to get kidnapped, and be locked in a red herring / crow fountain, only inches away from each other, and then float off into the sky having no idea if you'll ever touch the ground again. Doesn't sound that nice does it?

I followed their story line, as told in the Netflix series. I've only read The Bad Beginning book (although I can't convey with words how much I want to read the rest), and they don't appear in the film.

So let's dive in, and look at the events!

The Quagmire Mansion Going up in Flames

In _The Miserable Mill _we see a scene of Mr. and Mrs. Quagmire talking about fires, while Isadora and Duncan eavesdrop. When they all exit the room, some fire starter (rumored to be Esmé) sets fire to the house.

So I used that story, and wrote it in the perspective of Duncan and Isadora. They escape, and Mr. Poe comes to take them to their foster family.

The Wandelores

Here I really got to use my imagination! This whole thing with the Wandelores, the book, and Brielle dying was based on _one _quote said by Isadora.

"Our last guardian locked it in a safe after she lost her wife."

So I based an entire three chapters on 13 words. What I knew was that I had to have two spouses, both women, and one of them had to die. The other one locks the book in a safe, and the children are moved to Prufrock.

I came up with Brielle and Lorelei randomly, and I did the same with the Village of Rosebuds. The only thing I didn't come up with entirely was the death. I knew I wanted her to die at home, so I could write it exactly when Lorelei was about to tell the children about the V.F.D. So I did what any normal human would do, and I searched for easy ways to die at home (which sounds like something someone suicidal would search).

The very first result I got was a _dry drowning_, being caused by getting water in your throat while, for example, swimming. That's why they went to the beach. The water will then block your lungs from getting air, and so you drown, while on dry land. Pretty scary actually.

Prufrock

I mean it's already there. We know that they were there, that they lived in the orphan shack, and had just as boring lives as the Baudelaires. Then they meet the Baudelaires, all the bad stuff happens, they fall in love, and blah blah blah.

But of course, they also get moved to the broom closet while this happens. I just envisioned a broom closet; broken benches, dust, spider webs, and just a generally unsettling vibe.

Then they get kidnapped.

The Cage and the Red Herring

During their time as Count Olaf's kidnap victims I had to make sure of two things.

1: That they talked about Violet and Klaus

Of course they had to do that. I had to move the romance forward, since they all obviously love each other. (If anyone ships Violet with Quigley... go jump off a microwave, Violet and Duncan are way better together).

2: That they got the titles Olaf refers to them as when he's caught by Olivia and Jacques.

Isadora - The one who writes poetry.

Isadora writes poetry, couplets. Olaf found that out, and referred to her as "_One who writes poetry_". So I just threw in a couple of random couplets.

Duncan - The one who cries all the time.

This statement is not as good as Isadora's one. She at least got referred to as pursuing her dream, while Duncan just got... crying. Well, that meant he had to cry a lot, so he did. Of course Isadora cried as well, but not enough for Olaf to call her that name.

I noticed that they often refer to Isadora as kind of the "superior". Later in _The Vile Village_ Count Olaf and Esmé have this exchange of statements.

Esmé - "You have the soul of a poet"

Olaf - "And her brother too. We locked them in that fountain, remember?"

I don't know the exact words, but something like that.

This had nothing to do with the story. Just something I noticed.

Anyway, they're locked in a cage in the elevator shaft, where they spend _I'm not sure how much time _being locked up and doing nothing. The Baudelaire's get down there with a thingamajig, but go up almost immediately.

Then the triplets are put in the red herring, and we all know the most important thing that happens in there.

Duncan writes D.Q + V.B on the wall. It's just too adorable! Then blah blah blah, auction, and they go to the Village of Fowl Devotees.

The Fountain

In there they figure out how to smuggle couplets out, and of course everything sucks for them as they're trapped in a dark fountain for like two days. But then they're rescued, yay!

Rescued just to float away from everything and everyone!

I don't really have much to say I realize now. Well, who cares? I don't.

The Reuniting of the Triplets

Another chapter where I got to use nothing but my imagination. Yay! I just assumed/came up with the way Quigley reached the mobile home, because there's no clear way to how he did it in the series, as we just see him climbing into it, above the sea. We just see something in the water. So I decided that was the submarine, and just... wrote something.

Well, I loved writing that chapter, as it's so emotional!

The Age Order

While I'm here, writing and explaining things, I might as well write why I gave the triplets the birth order I gave them. One thing was obvious; Isadora was either youngest or oldest. As Duncan and Quigley are clearly identical, it means they're born after one another.

_The oldest: Isadora_

There was just something that really made me want to make her the oldest. I think she fits the role, and we always like a girl in charge. There's not really an in-charge-situation with them, but I think Isadora would be really good at leading her and her brothers in a crisis, plan, or just a regular thing. Isadora also possesses some of the oldest kid traits. In my view, she seems like the most mature Quagmire triplet too. Avi is also older than Dylan (the actors), so technically, she's older.

_The middle: Quigley_

One of the most common middle child traits is independence. Quigley has so fricking much independence so he just had to be the middle. In the scenes they have before the fire, Duncan and Isadora are seen hugging their mother together, and later sitting together on the couch, while Quigley goes alone to hug his father, and later he's sitting alone on the other side of the room. Also, he is the one who was alone all this time. And lastly, he is sociable, another middle child trait.

_The youngest: Duncan_

In mine, and many of my friends' experience, the youngest child is often the most sensitive. Which is partly the reason I put Duncan as the youngest. Going back to Olaf's statement "_The one who cries all the time_", meaning Duncan's likely the most sensitive. Youngest children are often sociable and confident. We see this in Duncan as he confronts Carmelita, and easily calls Olaf a miscreant.

I've noticed that my age order is kind of uncommon. Most people put Isadora as the youngest, but honestly, I have a hard time seeing it that way. I'm not saying my order is canon to the series, or that it is true in any way. It's how I view it. Everyone can have their own view on what order they're born in.

**Explain That Chapter**

Now let's get to my favorite part of Let's Talk. Explaining chapters. You'll catch onto the layout of it quickly, so let's go! (You've obviously noticed that I went with the theme of the names of the books/episodes of ASOUE)

_The Quintessential Quagmires  
_Chapter Summary \- After a long time of being away, Quentin and Karen Quagmire return home to their triplets.

Just a sweet little introduction. An insight to how the triplets used to live their lives before everything went wrong. I just wrote the scenes we see them in. First off, the random breakfast scene when a butler steps into their room with waffles and orange juice, then the scene where their parents return home, and lastly, when they're sitting in the library/living room, and the house starts burning.

_The Furious Fire  
_Chapter Summary \- Duncan and Isadora wake up to find that the house is going up in flames. They escape, but soon realize Quentin, Karen and Quigley did not.

Just imagining their situation is horrible. In my opinion, it's worse for them than for the Baudelaires. The Baudelaires didn't even have to witness the fire, their parents' last words to them weren't panicked orders for them to escape, and they were actually having a good time while their parents (unknowingly to them), were burning up.

_The Tender Town  
_Chapter Summary \- After spending the night at the Poe's house, Duncan and Isadora get moved to their new foster family; Brielle and Lorelei Wandelore.

Things are now back to a little lighter place. I actually love the Wandelores, especially Brielle. She's just so sweet! It's sad that she had to die, but in this story, no one can be happy. That's just how the story goes. Also, I wanna live in the Village of Rosebuds. It just sounds like such a lovely little place!

_The Wonderful Wandelores  
_Chapter Summary \- The triplets have a wonderful day with the Wandelores, despite everything. But later that evening, they discuss what happened, and try to come to terms with it.

They got to have fun for once! But then I ruined it with their conversation later. That was sweet instead. A chance for them to actually talk about what happened. Those moments are important.

_The Dry Drowning  
_Chapter Summary \- Duncan and Isadora go with the Wandelore's to the beach. But later, right when Lorelei is showing them the book, Brielle dies of a dry drowning.

Now we're back in action! Miserable and horrible action. Right when they were so darn close! Ah!

_The Sorrow School  
_Chapter Summary \- The Quagmires arrive at Prufrock Prepatory School, which they quickly realize is a not that nice place.

Here's when the story we know begin! If I'm being totally honest, I would rather sleep in the broom closet than the shack. I've seen that some people hate Carmelita like Potterheads hate Umbridge, but I don't get it! Carmelita's hilarious! Mean, but hilarious.

_The Perturb Prufrock  
_Chapter Summary \- Duncan and Isadora start their classes at Prufrock, which are both boring and pointless. They manage to deal with the crabs in the shack.

While reading through this chapter, I cracked up at Mr. Remora's story. I don't know why, but I find it hilarious. For some reason, I think Mr. Remora is funny as hell.

_The First Friends  
_Chapter Summary \- A new set of orphans arrive at the school, meaning the Quagmire's have to move into a broom closet. Later, they save the orphans from Carmelita.

Yeeeeeeesssss, the start of the two romances! *Happiness noise*! The only ship I ship more than Dunclet is Mileven from Stranger Things. Seriously though, how cute are they together!

_The Benefic Book  
_Chapter Summary \- The orphans bond over their interests, when they find out their stories are similar, and that they've both got incomplete spyglasses.

More Dunclet and Kladora moments! Not really romance moments, but for sure cute moments!

_The Careless Count  
_Chapter Summary \- The triplets share a sweet little talk, before enjoying 11 days with the Baudelaire's. But then... Count Olaf shows up at the school.

Hehehe, how much was I squealing at what I wrote myself in the beginning. I don't remember half of what I wrote, so now when I'm reading through this again, it's like I'm reading someone else's story.

_The Dreadful Decision  
_Chapter Summary \- After Nero and Olaf decide that the Baudelaires will be home schooled, the Quagmires and Baudelaires come up with a plan to make everything work.

Why does everything have to be horrible? Why are the adults to oblivious? Why can't anything go their way? If things did go their way, Lemony Snicket would just show up and be like "_uh-uh, that's not how the story goes, back to your miserable lives_".

_The Perfect Plan  
_Chapter Summary \- They come up with a plan to help the Baudelaires study for their big test. The Quagmires run lap after lap in the night, before the rope snaps. They run to the library and find the book, before they're kidnapped.

Doesn't seem like such a perfect plan anymore, does it? This was a moment of _OH NO._

_The Eerie Elevator  
_Chapter Summary \- Hooky takes the Quagmires to the car, and a while later, they're driven away from Prufrock. They're stacked in a cage in an ersatz elevator shaft.

When I really think about it, the Quagmires' situation was worse than the Baudelaires'. Except for their little talks, especially the one at the end of this chapter.

_The Setback Save  
_Chapter Summary \- The triplets have a couple more little talks, before the Baudelaire's come down to rescue them. Unfortunately, they're not able to.

I'm just imagining the situation, and it's not pleasant. You think that you're about to get rescued, but the second your rescuers are gone, people come and take you away. Just no. No one wants that.

_The Absurd Auction  
_Chapter Summary \- The "In" Auction is held, and the Baudelaires bid on the wrong item, causing the Quagmires to be driven away by Count Olaf.

It's weird watching back at this episode, knowing that the Quagmires are in that herring statue.

_The Faux Fountain  
_Chapter Summary \- They drive for a long time, before they end up in the Village of Fowl Devotees, where they are crammed into a fountain.

More sweet triplet moments, yeeessss! Lovin' it!

_The Successful Save  
_Chapter Summary \- The Baudelaires rescue the Quagmires from the fountains. The friends go to get to safety in Hector's mobile home, but the Baudelaires don't make it up.

Aaaaaaaaaaah noooooooo, I'm too saaaaaad. This was not okay.

_The Euphoric End  
_Chapter Summary \- After four months on the mobile home, Duncan and Isadora are reunited with Quigley.

All I can say is that I got the chills while rereading the part when they spot Quigley. I think I wrote that pretty well. This chapter is just filled with emotions, and I love it! Emotions, funny moments, everything. Personally, I prefer the Quagmire sibling chemistry over the Baudelaires. The Quagmires are more fun.

**Thanks for reading this story!**

Thanks, thanks, thanks to everyone who read this story! Thanks to all of you, this story has reached over 1500 views!

Big thanks to _AnnieRavenclaw707_ and _Number 10 _for favoriting! I really appreciate it

Big thanks to _AnnieRavenclaw707_, _Number 10 _and _philurbedwithbees _for following, love that too!

And the biggest thanks of all to _Qoheleth_, _AnnieRavenclaw707_, _Number 10_ and _VeronicaWeasley _for reviewing!

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**What did you think of Let's Talk?**


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